


Keep Calm and Hold On

by Aini_NuFire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Caretaker Dean, Caretaker Sam Winchester, Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Episode: s12e01 Keep Calm and Carry On, Episode: s12e02 Mamma Mia, Gen, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Dean Winchester, Season/Series 12, Sick Castiel, Torture, Whump, episode AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-05 09:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13385175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aini_NuFire/pseuds/Aini_NuFire
Summary: 12x01 AU - In the midst of grief, Sam and Cas are taken captive by a madwoman claiming to be British Men of Letters. With escape impossible and believing Dean to be dead, neither of them has much strength to hold on. But Dean is alive, and he’s coming for them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic jumps right in at the end of the season 11 finale. Lots of whump ahead. Thanks to 29Pieces for beta reading!
> 
> Disclaimer: Supernatural isn't mine. I also borrowed a lot of dialogue from episodes 12x01 "Keep Calm and Carry On" and 12x02 "Mamma Mia."

 

Sam pushed the bunker door open with its familiar grating screech.  _Home_.

Didn't mean much without Dean. Now it was just a big, empty place. Isolated. Jeez, could Sam even stay here anymore? As much as he wanted to be alone to grieve, he also didn't want to be cut off from the world. The world his brother had just sacrificed himself to save.

"Sam, I'm so sorry," Cas said, trailing behind him. "If you want to talk…"

Sam couldn't bring himself to feel touched by the angel's effort, especially when Cas had to be feeling Dean's loss as distraughtly as him, but Sam just didn't have the capacity to consider anyone else's emotional state right now. He could barely deal with his own.

"I'm here if you need anything," Cas finished, obviously just as much at a loss.

"Hello, hello," a feminine voice spoke up from the darkness.

Before either of them could react, there was the crack of a gunshot, and Cas staggered. Sam jolted in surprise, and then gaped as a glowing blue light started oozing from Cas's stomach.

"Cas!"

Cas's knees buckled. Sam made an abortive attempt to catch him before his brain caught up, and he reached for the gun in his waistband instead.

But the woman who had fired first aimed her weapon at him. "Don't. Angel bullets work just as well on humans."

He froze, and then reluctantly brought his hands back out front, palms up. A glance down at Cas found the angel clutching his stomach as blood trickled between his fingers, his face pinched in pain.

"Sam Winchester," the woman spoke again, drawing his attention back to her. "Toni Bevell. Men of Letters, London chapter house."

Sam's brows rose incredulously, then narrowed. Wait,  _what_?

"Oh, you won't have heard of me—us," she went on. "We're very traditional. Keep out of the way, keep to our studies."

Sam glanced at Cas again, who was looking up with equal bafflement. "You, um… _what_?"

There were more Men of Letters out there? Did that explain how she'd gotten into the bunker in the first place? But why was she pointing a gun at him? Why had she brought angel bullets and shot Cas on the spot?

"They sent me to take you in."

"To take me in?" Sam repeated. Was she serious?

"Assuming the world didn't end, and…" She shrugged with a forced smile. "Yay."

Sam looked down at Cas, bleeding on the floor, and some of his shock started to dissipate into anger. "Look, lady," he started, taking a step forward.

"We've been watching you, Sam," she interrupted. "What you've done, the damage you've caused—archangels, Leviathans, the Darkness, and now, well— the Old Men have decided enough's enough. I mean, let's face it, Sam. You're just a jumped-up hunter playing with things you don't understand and doing more harm than good."

Sam shook his head in dismay. Who the hell was she to lecture him about  _saving the world_?

"Those things weren't the Winchesters' fault," Cas gritted out, trying to prop himself up on his elbow.

This Toni Bevell merely gave him a disinterested look. "Yes, well, orders are orders. I'm sure you can appreciate that." She turned back to Sam. "Now, where's Dean?"

Sam's throat tightened. If Dean were here, he wouldn't listen to this bullshit. And he'd shoot Miss Toni Bevell on the spot for attacking them. "Dead," he bit out.

Toni's gaze bored into him for a moment, probably trying to judge whether he was lying. But the hot moisture he could feel in his eyes and the way Cas ducked his gaze to the floor must have convinced her it was the truth.

Sam steeled his jaw. "Listen, lady," he said, raising a finger and taking a step forward. "I don't know who the hell you are or what the hell you want—"

She whipped her gun up. "Stop."

Sam didn't. He wasn't just going to stand by and let someone come into his home, shoot his friend, and tell him he was to be put on trial for everything he ever did with his life. "Put the gun down."

Her eyes hardened, and she squeezed the trigger. The shot echoed in the library, and searing pain tore through Sam's leg. Shock swallowed his gasp of surprise as he fell backward and hit the floor.

"Sam!" Cas shouted, and tried to push himself up.

Heels clacked across the tiles. "Stay down, angel. I have plenty of bullets, but would rather not kill you."

Sam gritted his teeth against the pain and clutched at his leg. He tried reaching for his gun.

"Ah-ah," Toni clucked. "Bring it out nice and slow, Sam, or I will put another bullet in your friend."

Sam craned his head up to see Toni standing over Cas, gun pointed at his head. Fury made his cheeks flush hotly, but he nevertheless slowly pulled his gun out and set it on the floor. Toni stepped over and kicked it out of reach. She then reached into her pocket and pulled out a phone. After hitting one of the speed dials, she pressed it to her ear.

"Bring the car around."

So there was more than one of them. Sam threw an alarmed look at Cas, hoping the angel had some power up his sleeve that he could bounce back from that gunshot wound with and take out this bitch.

Cas's face was lined with pain, but he did look as though he were trying to muster the strength to fight back.

Yet before he could, Toni reached into her suit jacket and pulled out a syringe with some kind of dark red, viscous looking fluid. She plucked the cap off with her teeth, and dropped down next to Cas and jabbed the needle into his neck. Cas's eyes blew wide and his body went rigid.

"Cas!" Sam pushed himself upright.

Toni straightened and then stepped over Cas to come clock Sam in the side of the head with the butt of her gun. Stars burst in front of his eyes, and he fell back to the floor, vision going black around the sight of Cas seizing.

* * *

Lightning jolted through his body, and Sam came to with a scream and desperate gasp for air. A woman in a black, short-sleeve turtleneck and hair pulled back in a severe bun was standing over him with a cattle prod in hand.

"Be a good boy," she said with a smirk.

Sam jerked, only to feel resistance in his arms and feet. Glancing down, he found his ankles tied to the legs of the chair he was in, shoes and socks gone, and the clink of chains behind him let him know he was cuffed. His jeans were torn and blood stained, and he had a brief flashback of being stitched up by a vet of all people.

_Cas!_  He'd been trussed up in the back of that SUV with Sam, though unconscious the entire time.

Blinking back some lingering dizziness, Sam quickly spotted the angel in the dark corner, wrists cuffed and suspended from a hook in the ceiling. His shins were scraping the concrete floor as he dangled, still out cold. A tourniquet had been wrapped around Cas's stomach, though it was soaked in blood. Sam recalled Toni telling the vet guy that Cas didn't need any medical attention. Sam had wanted to scream at them through his gag. No way that angel bullet was a through-and-through. But then, if they removed the bullet, Cas would be able to start healing, which it seemed Toni knew damn well.

Footsteps clopped down some rickety stairs, and Sam whipped his head up to find said bitch coming down.

" _You_." He wrenched at his bindings, scraping the chair legs slightly, but otherwise he was bolted down. He continued to struggle anyway.

Toni calmly walked over to a chair set across from him and sat down, pulling a book and pen from the table next to it into her lap. She uncapped the pen and had the gall to smile at him. "Now, Sam. Let's begin."

He seethed at her. "Toni Bevell, London chapter house."

"That's right," she said brightly, as though Sam had just done something that earned him a cookie.

"So, you're what? You're, uh, English Men of Letters?"

"British," she corrected sharply.

Sam rolled his eyes. Right.

Toni bent over her book to begin making notes. Sam shook his head in disgust and looked around the dingy cellar.

"Where are we?"

Toni quirked a look at him. "Does it matter?"

"Just wondering how far we're gonna have to walk back to town after I kill you," he said, matching her nonchalance. "And her," he added, nodding to the other woman. She rolled her eyes in a silent scoff.

Sam looked back at Toni with a little more vitriol. "But you first."

She gazed back at him, unamused. "Yes, well, before you murder us all," she said buoyantly, "we do have a few questions about you, your brother, hunters in America, and how you saved the sun."

Sam chuckled derisively and shook his head. "Right. You shoot me and my friend, kidnap us, but yeah, happy to help."

"I didn't want to hurt you, Sam. You gave me no choice."

"You shot Cas point-blank the moment we walked down the stairs," Sam snapped. With the one kind of bullet that could hurt an angel. If that didn't scream premeditated intent, Sam didn't know what did.

"It was a precaution. Angels can be very difficult to work with," she replied blandly. "And, well, I could say it was never supposed to go this way," she continued. "But you're…you. It was always going to go this way."

"And you know me?" he retorted.

"We do. We've been watching you and your brother for years. Ever since you almost ended the world the first time. We knew all about Lucifer, the angels falling."

"Then where were you?" he accused. All this time, there'd been people out there—Men of Letters—who could have  _helped_  them? And now these people were going to sit in judgement just because Sam and Dean hadn't been able to save the world without some things going to hell? No, no way.

Toni cocked her pen at him and winked. "Fair question. See, some of us wanted to get involved, but the Old Men wouldn't allow it. Thought we were overstepping our bounds. After all this business with the Darkness, even they have to agree, things need to change." She leaned forward earnestly. "And while you might not believe this, Sam, we're here to help."

He let out a scornful huff. "Yeah, no, I- I can tell." He tested his bonds again, but couldn't find any give. He was completely at the mercy of these women, and it infuriated him.

Cas suddenly let out a low groan. Toni lifted a brow and glanced over her shoulder. "Ms. Watts, would you take care of that, please?"

Sam's brow furrowed as he watched the woman in black retrieve a pre-loaded syringe from a bag of tools on the table. It had the same red liquid as the syringe Toni had used earlier.

Cas was starting to sway slightly as he fought his way to consciousness, but then Ms. Watts was jabbing the needle into the side of his neck and depressing the plunger. Cas grunted and then fell limp again.

"What did you give him?" Sam demanded. It wasn't normal for Cas to be out like this for so long, and even from where he was seated, Sam could see beads of sweat dampening the angel's hairline.

"Demon blood," Toni replied casually.

Sam felt the oxygen rush out of his lungs.  _What_? He yanked against his chains. "He's already restrained!" Those handcuffs had Enochian sigils on them, not to mention the bullet in his gut. And Sam didn't even want to imagine what something like demon blood could do to an angel. Obviously, it was making Cas sick, but what if it was causing internal damage of some kind?

"These proceedings will go more quickly without any interruptions." Toni angled a condescending look at Sam. "I want to apologize for locking you up. You're dangerous—to others and yourself—but if you answer my questions, you walk right out that door." She flashed him a sickly false smile. "I promise."

Sam swallowed hard, unable to help glancing up at the door. "And Cas?"

"Him too," Toni replied readily.

Yeah, Sam didn't believe her for a minute. And he may not have had much left in this world, but he wasn't going to give up his honor.

"Pass."

"Sam…"

"You can ask me any kind of question you want," he cut her off. "The answer's gonna be the exact same—screw, you."

Toni's brows rose.

"You want to get mad?" Sam went on. "You want to get mean? I've been tortured by the Devil himself. So you, you're just an accent in a pantsuit. What can you do to me?"

Toni closed her book and placed the cap back on her pen. Then with a forced smile, she nodded to Ms. Watts. The woman turned where she was standing against the wall and cranked a faucet handle. There was the squeak of pipes as water rushed through them, and Sam quirked a confused look before he felt droplets plink on his cheek. Looking up, he found a sprinkler and hose had been rigged up above him, and was now pouring cold water down on his head.

"A cold shower?" Sam asked, spitting water from his mouth as his hair flattened down over his forehead. "That's your play?" He flipped his hair out of his eyes as it and his clothes quickly became soaked.

Toni said nothing, just continued to bore her gaze into him smugly.

The cold water seeped through his layers and into his skin, and Sam started to shiver. He glared at Toni Bevell.

"Screw you," he repeated.

* * *

Dean opened the bunker door for his mom, letting her step inside first. Her mouth hung open as she went to the railing and gazed at the war room below, and the study area just beyond that.

"You live here?" she asked with a hint of awe.

"Yeah, when we're not on the road," he replied. "It's an old Men of Letters bunker."

"Men of Letters?" she repeated.

"Yeah." He turned to lead the way downstairs.

"They're a myth. An old hunters' story," Mom protested as she followed.

"Not so much. New duds look good," he said, trying to divert the conversation from going down the road of the Men of Letters, of Dad having supposed to have been one before Henry Winchester had disappeared—to the future.

Things to explain were complicated enough as they were.

Mom huffed. "Well, thanks. It's better than walking around in that nightgown the rest…"

She trailed off as Dean came to a stop. There was blood splatter on the floor. Two separate ones, and then blood trails as though someone or something had been dragged. Dean tensed and looked out into the library, ears peeled for sounds of an intruder.

"That's blood," Mom said.

Dean's heart thudded in his rib cage. "Yeah." He drew his gun and cocked it, then started forward cautiously. "Sammy? Cas?"

There was no answer. There was no sound at all.

Dean turned and headed back into the war room, pausing at the map table to retrieve the gun strapped underneath. He handed it to Mom. "Take this," he instructed, still on guard. "Stay here."

"Dean," she hissed, but he ignored her, heading down another passage to make a circuitous route through the bunker.

"Sammy?" he called again. Where the hell were they? What the hell had managed to get into the bunker to attack them? And that blood had better belong to someone else…

It took him fifteen minutes to check the entire bunker, and there was no sign of Sam or Cas. Dean's chest constricted with mounting fear. Could they have escaped somewhere? Gone to take care of the bodies? But then why hadn't Sam been answering his phone this whole time? Dean had tried calling him, and Cas, several times to let them know he was still alive. The news about Mom, well, that was something better delivered in person.

Except Sam wasn't here, or Cas, and Dean had a really bad feeling as to why.

He made his way back to the study where Mom was waiting, gun lowered but at the ready. "They're not here," he said.

"They?"

"Sam and Cas."

"Is Cas another hunter?" Mom asked.

"Uh, no," Dean replied distractedly. "He's an angel."

"Come again?"

"You know, angel. Capital A. Wings, harp. His name is Castiel. We call him Cas." And the fact that it looked as though something had gotten a drop on his angel friend carved out a pit of dread in Dean's stomach.

He went to his laptop and opened it, immediately hacking into traffic camera footage. Sam and Cas obviously weren't here, and the Impala was in the garage, so either they'd taken another car, or  _were_  taken…

"Is that…a computer?" Mom asked.

"Yeah." He checked the timestamps starting last night, after Amara and Chuck had restored the sun, figuring Sam and Cas wouldn't have come back to the bunker until after they'd known the world was saved. He clicked through several street views, speeding up the footage to cover more time more quickly. Mom stood awkwardly behind him, watching.

"Got something," he finally said. "An SUV ran a red light a few blocks from here at 2:21am. And there wasn't another car for forty minutes." He tapped a few keys to get a close-up of the license plate.

"How did you do that?" Mom asked incredulously.

"I hacked the traffic cams," he said proudly.

Her brows rose in sharp dismay.

Dean quirked a smile. "Welcome to the future." He turned his attention to tracing that license plate.

"You think it's them?" Mom asked quietly.

Dean's jaw tightened. "It's worth a shot."

He did not just come back from dodging death and finding his mom brought back from the dead to lose his brother and best friend now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Wayward pilot was awesome and I am seriously looking forward to a show with an all-female cast of BAMF women. And I love all of them, but I would also watch a show of just Jody and Donna hunting together. #giveittome

Sam was completely drenched, violent shivers making his teeth chatter. The pipes creaked as the water was finally turned off. Sam gasped against his body's betraying shudders as Toni stood up and walked forward.

"Can I end this, Sam? Please?" she said, as though it caused  _her_  pain to do this to him. It only made Sam seethe more.

His voice quavered with the effort it took to speak past his shaking jaw. "Screw. You."

"What do you imagine is happening here?" she asked, brow furrowed. "Do you think you're being brave, that you're the hero of this story? Well, you're no hero, Sam." She shook her head. "You're just bad at your job."

"Yeah, and you're better?" he couldn't help retorting, struggling to quiet his audible shivers.

"So much better," she replied with a conviction that didn't sound overly arrogant. "You drive back roads, catching cases at random. You get word a body's dropped, you check it out, and maybe you even kill the thing that did it." She started to pace around him. "But that person is still dead, and maybe a few more. But my people? We plan ahead. We study lore, and we use it  _against_  our enemies. Back home, every thoroughfare, every bridge, every dock, every airport has been warded. The moment a monster steps foot in Britain, we know about it. Within twenty minutes, he's been picked up. And within forty, he's dead. There hasn't been a monster-related death in Britain since 1965 because we are  _good_  at our job."

Sam might have been impressed if he'd had the energy to pay attention to what she was saying, but mostly he was just pissed. And angry.

And unable to stave off despair. Because Dean was dead. His older brother wasn't out there looking for them, wasn't coming to their rescue. No one was. He and Cas were on their own, helpless.

Toni looked away for a moment and shook her head as though exasperated. "Now, you were always a lost cause, Sam, but I'm hoping there are other hunters we can work with. Teach."

He clamped his mouth shut as he gazed back at her.

Toni stalked closer. "So, I need you to give me names and locations and everything else. Dead drops, meeting places, an organizational hierarchy." She leaned down to meet his eyes. "Because maybe with all of us working together, we can do what you never could—make America safe."

Sam swallowed, his shaking finally under control. Yeah, it sounded like a good prospect. Too bad her pitch was hampered by her current setup. "Or maybe you tie them to a chair," he said levelly.

Toni straightened.

"Maybe you do worse. So, maybe…maybe you can go to Hell."

They gazed at each other for a beat in silence, Sam lifting his chin defiantly.

Toni hummed thoughtfully. "Have it your way." She turned, nodded to Ms. Watts, and then headed up the stairs.

Sam gave himself a shake, figuring more torture was on the way. Toni's exit was probably a calculated act to make him sweat, but he refused to give in. Not to these self-righteous assholes.

The click and whoosh of a blowtorch had Sam's heart dropping into his stomach. Ms. Watts walked toward him, eyes like flint. Sam's breaths started coming more rapidly.

She stopped in front of him and squatted down. "Are you really gonna make me do this?" she asked, though it was clear her distaste was for his refusal, and not for what she was threatening to do.

Sam stared at the blue-hot flame shooting from the torch, and had to remind himself that he'd felt the sear of hellfire. This was nothing.

But he felt a flicker of relief that Cas wasn't awake to watch this.

He turned to meet her gaze staunchly. "Screw. You."

She clucked her tongue and sighed, then leaned down, bringing the blowtorch toward his right foot. The blistering heat prickled his skin, and Sam tried to inch away, but his ankle was shackled in place to the chair.

"No," he gasped, straining against the chains. The blowtorch came ever closer. "Don't." Terror sent his heart rate into overdrive and his cheeks puffed with exertion as he fought to get free. "Don't."

Fire scorched his foot, and Sam threw his head back and screamed.

* * *

Castiel jolted into consciousness as a guttural cry pierced the air. His arms were wrenched painfully above his head, and he swung from his abrupt waking, which made his vision blur. His head was pounding and every joint in his vessel felt as though it were on fire.

The scream choked off with a sob and then a whimper. Castiel tried to get his feet under him, but his shoes scuffed weakly on the floor. He forced his eyes open and blinked against the drab smudges that greeted him. As they slowly cleared, he registered Sam tied to a chair in the middle of what looked like a basement. The Winchester's hair and clothes were wet, and his head was slumped forward against his chest. There was a woman standing next to him who was just flicking off a blowtorch.

Castiel's heart leaped into his throat, and he once again tried to gain his feet, but his muscles wouldn't respond. He could taste sulfur in the back of his throat and feel the singed edges of his grace where demon blood had attacked it within the veins of his vessel. Not only that, but a bullet made of celestial alloy was still lodged in his stomach, preventing his grace from healing the wound there. The Enochian handcuffs he was dangling from weren't helping, either.

All in all, Castiel was rendered completely powerless and unable to do anything to help Sam. Who were these people, anyway? British Men of Letters, was it? What did they want?

The door above him creaked open, followed by footsteps descending. The blonde woman who had shot him and Sam—hadn't she called herself Toni Bevell?—gave Sam an evaluative once-over.

"No one can take that much pain and not break," the other woman said. "No one."

Castiel's heart flipped with horror and a small flicker of pride at Sam's strength. Though the young Winchester wouldn't be in this mess if Castiel had watched out for him like Dean had entrusted him to do. But Castiel had failed. Again.

In the background, Sam groaned weakly, barely conscious.

The red-head looked up, and then nodded Castiel's direction. "Halo's awake."

Toni Bevell angled herself toward him. "Well, hello again."

He stiffened, and wished he could get his feet to hold him up. He hated appearing so vulnerable, especially to mere humans. They shouldn't have been able to incapacitate him like this.

The blonde woman approached him with a considering moue. "I wonder if you might be able to help us. Sam is being very difficult, and it would be a great service if you could convince him to tell us what we want to know."

"Which is?" he ground out.

"About other American hunters," she replied genially. "And how the sun was saved. Or perhaps you know the answers to those questions. You have worked closely with the Winchesters these past few years."

Castiel gritted his teeth. The woman had said she and her organization had been watching Sam and Dean for years. They knew about a lot of things that had happened…he wondered how much they knew about him and his role in these matters.

"Why are you doing this?"

"America needs help. The hunters here are, frankly, incompetent. Too many people die at the hands of monsters. We're here to fix that. But in order to do so, we need to know about the infrastructure of the American hunters, meeting places and the like. Perhaps you can convince Sam to give up the information, before we have to take this to the next level."

Castiel fixed her with a dark glower. "Given our current circumstances, I doubt your motives are as noble as you declare."

She met his gaze for a long moment before finally breaking it and giving a smug smirk. "Very well." She strode over to a table and picked up a syringe and vial full of treacly red fluid, which Castiel could only guess was more demon blood. He yanked against the chains, to no avail.

"And what about the other one?" the red-head asked.

"We keep going."

She shook her head. "Ma'am, if you want him dead, then I'll slit his throat right now. But if you want to take this to the next level, you need to make the call. Bring in Mr. Ketch."

That made Toni Bevell blanch. "I don't want that psychopath anywhere near me."

The other woman crossed her arms. "So?"

Toni finished filling the syringe, and then turned back to Castiel. "So…we stop trying to break his body. We break his mind."

_No!_  Castiel tried to twist away, tried to break free so he could save Sam, but Toni rammed the needle into the side of his neck, and molten fire surged through his veins. Castiel choked back a cry of pain and despair as every muscle seized, and he was pulled down into an endless inferno.

* * *

Dean approached the garage where he'd traced the license plate of that SUV to. Mom followed, which he hated to admit, was kinda throwing him off his game. It was bad enough he was worried about Sam and Cas, but he'd barely had the chance to get used to his mom being back from the  _dead_  before they were forced out on a case together. And Mom had given up the hunting life. Not that she hadn't insisted on coming along, because Sammy was also her son, and she wasn't going to sit by while he was in trouble.

There was a guy inside, working on the vehicle. Dean noted that the back interior had been completely cleared out.

"Jamie Ross?"

The guy turned. "Who's asking?"

Dean plastered on a fake, disarming smile. "You take any jobs that brought you through Lebanon recently?"

Ross paused, mouth pursing as though thinking. "Lebanon? Sorry, mate, you got the wrong—"

Dean pulled out his gun and aimed it at the driver's chest. "Yeah, no I don't. What were you doing in Lebanon? And where's my brother?"

Ross held his hands up, eyes wide now. "Look, I don't know—"

Dean cocked the gun, and lowered it toward the man's kneecap.

"Wait- wait! I was just hired as a driver, I swear."

"And how much extra does it cost to transport bodies?" Dean snapped. He took a menacing step forward. "Talk, now."

"I don't know the lady's name," Ross blustered.

Lady? Dean's eyes darkened. "What do you know?"

"I picked her up from the airport. Blonde woman, British accent. And we drove to Lebanon." Ross's throat bobbed. "And we…picked up some additional passengers."

"Dead or alive?" Dean growled. The answer had to be alive, because no one bothered to kidnap dead bodies.

"Alive! We even took them to get patched up by a vet in town. But I left after that, I swear!"

Dean's gut clenched. So they both were injured. But if Cas was hurt, why wouldn't he have healed and fought back? What could have taken him down so that one woman and this civilian driver could just drive off with them? Unless they had threatened Sam. That might get Cas to comply with their orders. Dean didn't like it, though. And where the hell had they gone? Or were they still in the area?

He jabbed his gun into Ross's face. "What else?"

"The flight! I can give you that."

Dean nodded. It was something.

He almost considered beating the guy unconscious for kidnapping his brother and best friend, until he remembered his mom was standing right there.

Dean turned, barely meeting her gaze. She didn't say anything, and Dean decided to walk away.

He cleared his throat once they were outside. "Listen, uh, about back there…"

"Sam's in trouble," she cut him off, as if that was reason enough.

Which, it was.

They climbed back into the Impala and drove to a nearby outdoor food court where Dean could get some WiFi on his laptop. Unfortunately, that info was a dead end.

He slammed the laptop lid closed in frustration.

"Didn't find anything?" Mom asked with a mixture of sympathy and dread.

"Yeah, no. Ran the tail number that what's-his-face gave us. The plane that Evil Elsa flew in on has diplomatic registry."

"Which means?"

Dean scowled. "Which means its flight plans are sealed unless you want to hack the State Department."

Maybe Sam could have swung that one, but it was definitely beyond Dean's capability.

Mom shook her head. "Who are these people?"

He was asking himself the same thing. He didn't know of any monsters who filed papers and traveled with diplomatic status. That sounded more like human. But what humans would have targeted Sam and Cas like that? What humans would have even known about the bunker?

Dean roved his gaze around, at a loss as to what to do next, when he spotted an SUV with a logo for a Dr. Marion's veterinarian practice pulling into a drive with the same logo posted on a sign. Ross had said they'd taken Sam and Cas to a veterinarian…

"Mom." He nodded that direction.

Her eyes lit up with recognition as well, and they hurriedly stood from their table and headed across the street, stopping at the Impala to stash the laptop.

The vet guy was unloading his vehicle when they came up the driveway. Dean drew his gun and quickened his pace to catch up just as the vet reached the door to his clinic. Dean grabbed his shoulder and pressed the barrel into the back of his neck. He jolted, twisting his head around in fright.

"Dr. Marion," Dean growled. "How about you let us in?"

He gave a jerky nod, and slowly reached for the door handle. Dean shoved him inside, casting a glance over his shoulder to make sure Mom was still with him. She hurried in behind them and then shut the door.

Dean directed Marion over to his desk and kicked the client chair around so it was facing forward. Then he pushed Marion into it before stowing his gun. This guy didn't look as hard as the driver had.

"Alright, let's cut to the chase. We know a British blonde woman brought you some patients to patch up—ones that didn't have four legs and a tail, but one did have shaggy hair. So tell us what you know."

Marion swallowed hard, and glanced nervously between them. "Um, yeah. I patched one of them up."

Dean's blood turned to ice. "One of them? What about the other one?"

Marion shook his head. "I asked, okay, but the lady said he didn't need it. Just the guy who had a bullet in his leg. The, er, one with shaggy hair."

_Sam_. So if Cas didn't get stitched up, had he healed already? Except…

"What shape was the other guy in?" Dean demanded.

"Um, I don't know. She wouldn't let me look. And honestly, I didn't want to. He looked pretty bad. Was unconscious the whole time."

Shit, what the hell had that bitch done to Cas?

"I mean, he was probably alive," Marion went on. "She went to the trouble of having me help the other guy. Didn't want him bleeding out or going into shock from the gunshot wound."

"So, you dug the bullet out of his leg, no questions asked?" Dean asked, crossing his arms.

"She offered me a hundred grand," Marion replied, as though he'd won the lottery.

"And you took it?" Mom asked in revulsion.

He shrugged. "Student loans were a bitch, okay?"

Dean's expression hardened, and he shook his head in disgust as he reached for his gun again.

Marion held up his hands. "Alright, look," he exclaimed. "She didn't give me her name. When we were done, the driver bailed, I got paid, and then some other chick shows up, and they all drive away."

Mom narrowed her eyes. "And that's everything you know?"

Marion's pupils were too wide as he gazed back at her and nodded. "Yeah.  _Totally_."

Mom was silent for a moment, then, "Hurt him."

Dean spared a second to raise his brows in surprise, but with his brother and Cas on the line, he quickly got over it, and drew his gun again. Stepping forward, he jammed the barrel into Marion's crotch.

"Oh, oh, aah!" the vet squealed. "I have her phone number! Okay? Okay, look, look, look. Look, I don't know where they are, but she called me a couple hours ago—a few hours ago, asking about the sedative I gave the guy. So…I've got her phone number."

Dean paused, then slowly straightened. "Call her. Now."

"R-right," he stammered, and fumbled for the cell phone on his desk. He hit the button to call the last incoming number.

"Speaker," Dean warned.

The vet quickly hit that button next. The other end rang twice before clicking as it was picked up.

"Dr. Marion," a female voice with a British accent answered, sounding concerned.

"Yeah, I'm just calling, you know, to, uh, check on the patient," the man blundered.

"Is everything all right, doctor?" she asked suspiciously.

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Definitely."

"I'm hanging up now."

Dean snatched the phone out of Marion's hand and held the speaker up to his mouth. "Listen, bitch, I don't care who you are, I don't care what you want. You have my brother and friend."

There was a beat of silence on the other end. "Dean Winchester. I heard you were dead."

"Well, you heard wrong." His chest constricted, because both Sam and Cas thought he was dead. They didn't know he was alive, that he was doing everything within his power to find them. "Now, I'm gonna give you one chance—just one—to hand Sam and Cas back."

"Sorry," she said abruptly. "Not possible."

"Oh, you think you can run from me?" he said darkly. "Try it. Because when I find you—and I will find you—if they are not in one piece, I will take you apart. You understand me?"

The line clicked as she hung up, and Dean blinked at the phone as the screen went dark with the aborted call. Rage surged up with such force as Dean hadn't felt since he bore the Mark of Cain, and he snapped the cheap phone into pieces, scattering chunks of glass onto the floor.

He may not have been a Knight of Hell anymore, but these people had no idea the wrath and fury they had just unleashed…


	3. Chapter 3

Sam woke with a start, immediately aware of lying on cold concrete instead of being strapped to a chair. He pushed himself upright in a rush, twisting his head around. He was still in the cellar, but no longer bound, and his two tormentors were gone. Cas was still there, chained up in the corner and out cold.

His foot was pulsing with fiery anger, and Sam couldn't keep back the grunts as he leaned forward to examine it. It'd been wrapped in gauze, for which he was grateful; given how bad it hurt, seeing the actual damage might cause his already precarious stomach to revolt.

Why the hell had they unchained him, though? He craned his head around more, only to become aware of a dull throb in his neck, and he reached a hand up to feel the slight bump of a needle puncture. His heart gave a horrified stutter. Had they dosed him with demon blood now?

No, no. Sam knew what being high on demon blood felt like; this wasn't it. He didn't know what he'd been given, but for now he was conscious and free, which meant he was going to get up and do something.

He gave the room another scan, trying to see if he'd missed anything. There were some wires strung across the support beams, and Sam traced their path to a black dome mounted on the ceiling, a red dot blinking inside it.

His brows rose at the realization that he wasn't as alone as he'd thought. Feeling the puncture mark in his neck again, Sam wondered what the hell their game was.

Well, regardless, he wasn't going to just sit by and do nothing.

Grunting with pained effort, he slowly pushed himself up off the floor. Searing agony shot through his foot at the slightest weight he put on it, and he had to catch himself on the chair, slumping back into it and panting from the exertion. Yeah, he wouldn't be walking far like this.

He looked up at the door at the top of the steps, waiting to see if it would open and his captors would come back down. It didn't. He forced himself to his feet, staggering when his foot threatened to give out again, but Sam gritted his teeth and managed to remain upright. He hobbled toward Cas, using the rickety table for balance.

"Cas?  _Cas_ ," he called urgently, willing the angel to wake up. Cas didn't stir.

When Sam got closer, he saw Cas's neck was a mottled mess of red puncture marks and bruising, suggesting he'd been dosed with demon blood several times already.

"Cas," Sam tried again, voice cracking as he reached for his friend and tried to jostle him awake. He needed Cas to wake up, needed his friend to be here so he wasn't alone. But Cas remained limp in his chains, hair damp with sweat and pallor more gray than a corpse's.

Sam took in a shuddering breath, and turned to shamble his way across the cellar to the outer door. It was chained shut, but he rattled the wooden slats anyway, praying for  _something_  to give. Yet it held firm. And even if he could have opened it, he wouldn't have been able to get Cas out, or gotten far with neither of them able to walk.

Frustration and desperation overwhelmed him, and he let out an enraged cry. "Argh, no!"

He stumbled back, chest heaving. Okay, okay, think. He couldn't give up.

Sam started back toward the center of the room, only for a high-pitched ringing to suddenly assault his eardrums. He doubled over, clapping a hand to the side of his head. What the…

The ringing intensified, until it felt like Sam's skull was about to implode in on itself. He clutched his head with both hands, squeezing his eyes shut against the drilling agony. A shockwave rippled through his brain, and he snapped his eyes open again. The air wavered and smoked, revealing Kevin's face, eyes burned out.

Sam gasped and spun away, only to see a vision of Dean's blood-splattered face after the hellhound had torn into him. Then it was Mom, burning on the ceiling. Sam stood there, frozen in horror, as a disembodied scream echoed through the basement. He tried to get away from the phantoms, but his vision warped, and Sam couldn't have moved even if he wanted to.

He dropped to his knees, and this time saw a mirage of another young woman burning on a ceiling.

Sam gasped. "Jessica."

_"Dead. I'm dead because of you."_

Sam whirled around. In the corner, a swirling image of Dean, beaten and bloodied at Stull Cemetery, echoed with a distorted voice.

_"I'm dead because of you. This is all your fault. This is your fault."_

"Dean?" Sam sputtered. No, no, Dean hadn't died that day. Sam hadn't killed his brother. He'd stopped Lucifer, taken back control.

But Dean  _was_  dead. Sacrificed himself to stop the Darkness, which was only free because  _Sam_  had been determined to remove the Mark, damn the consequences.

The apparition floated around him.

_"We're all dead because of you, Sam."_

He turned, and there was Cas hanging in the corner, charcoal wing prints splayed across the walls.

_No_. No, no, no.

"Cas," he choked.

_"It should've been you,"_  Dean's voice echoed in his head.

Sam spun to get away, and lurched against a sink as he came face to face with himself in a mirror.

_"It should've been you. You're a freak. You are a freak."_

Sam whipped back around, but there was no Dean in the basement with him, no ghost. The voices were all in his head. He must have been drugged with some kind of hallucinogenic.

_"You're a freak. It's your fault."_

Sam looked at himself in the mirror again. "You're right."

It was his fault. Dean was dead because of his actions. Cas was here because the angel had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, because he was friends with the Winchesters and these British Men of Letters were going to hold Sam responsible for every bad thing that ever happened to the world.

He clapped his hands over his ears to try to block out the high-pitched ringing, but it wouldn't let up.

_"Your fault! It's your fault. Just die. It's your fault. It's your fault."_

Sam latched onto one phrase out of the cacophony ringing in his head.

_Just die._

Maybe that was the way out he needed.

Fury seething up inside him, Sam pulled his arm back and punched the mirror, shattering it. He picked up a large shard from the sink and gripped it tightly, then made sure to turn around to face the camera. Let them get a good look at what their methods had led to.

Dean's voice continued to echo in his head, over and over again.

_"It's your fault. It's all your fault. Just die. Why won't you die, Sam? Why don't you die? It's your fault."_

Sam held the glass to his throat, and swiped, making sure to twist all the way around and fall on his side, his back now to the camera. He did slit flesh, but the meat of his palm instead, letting blood pool around him as he lay perfectly still. He knew he'd have one shot with this.

He kept his eyes squeezed shut so he couldn't see Cas, afraid those wing prints would still be there. Sam had to believe that wasn't real, either.

It didn't take long at all for the latch on the cellar door to unlock and harried footsteps to descend the stairs. They pulled up short at the bottom, probably shocked by this seeming turn of events. Sam held his breath.

He could feel the air shift, and then the end of a cattle prod gently alighted on his shoulder. Sam flipped over, knocking it from Toni's hand, and leaped off the floor to grab her by the neck. Her terrified expression spurred him all the more as he drove her back against the wall.

He raised a hand shaking with adrenaline to reveal the cut he'd made. "Maybe you're not as good at your job as you think," he spat.

He squeezed harder, ignoring her choking sounds as she struggled to breathe. His own cheeks puffed with barely contained fury as hers reddened with oxygen deprivation.

Finally, Sam let her crumple to the floor like a doll. No one else had come down, and he had to wonder if that meant Toni was alone for now. It seemed like it was just the two women here.

Still shaking, Sam hobbled his way toward the staircase. Maybe there was a phone upstairs he could use to call the police. That wasn't his preferred plan of action, but he had to admit that he wasn't in very good shape, and Cas was even worse off. Sam might not be able to get the angel out of this hellhole on his own. He'd deal with hospital staff later. They'd be easier to escape from, anyway.

His leg was trembling as he took the first step, that burst of adrenaline draining his strength faster than it would take to get up the stairs, especially with his foot screaming at him. But he had to make it. He had to get them out of here.

A lightning rod was suddenly jammed into his thigh, and Sam screamed as his muscles seized up and he fell. Toni tried to scramble past him, but he shot a hand out to grab her ankle, dragging her down. She was still holding the cattle prod, though, and twisted around to thrust it into his shoulder. Sam let out another garbled cry as he wrenched away.

Toni scrabbled up the steps, and Sam lunged to stop her again. His fingers clawed at her leg, but she drew her other knee up and kicked him in the face. Then she was up and through the door, slamming it behind her.

Sam's heart leaped into his throat as he tried to follow, but he heard the latch slide shut and lock.

" _No!_ " he raged, surging forward and pounding against the door. "No!"

His burned foot spasmed, and he slid down a few steps in agony, reaching for his shin. Tears of frustration streamed down his face.  _No_.

He'd had one shot, and he'd  _failed_. Toni wouldn't fall for the same trick twice. He was trapped down here, and…and no one was coming for him.

Sam forced himself to his feet, clenching his jaw against the pain as he limped over to the corner. Cas was hanging low in the chains, and Sam gripped his wrists, letting out a strained groan as he hefted Cas's body enough for the handcuffs to come off the hook. But Cas was a deadweight and Sam couldn't hold him. His foot seized, and they both went crashing to the floor.

Sam rolled onto his back, moaning, white spots flitting across his vision as he breathed harshly through his nose and tried to ride out the waves of pain in his foot.

"Sam," a frail voice rasped a few moments later.

Sam turned his head to find Cas's eyes slitted open, pupils cloudy. Fine tremors were running through the angel as he lay on his side, not even trying to lift his head off the cold concrete.

"Cas, hey." Sam groaned as he rocked onto his hip and reached out to grip Cas's arm like a lifeline. "How you doin'?"

Cas's eyelids slid closed, then sluggishly opened again. "Where are they?" he asked instead of answering the question.

Sam's stomach tightened, because yeah, he could see how Cas was doing. "Upstairs. I tried to make a play to escape, but it didn't work. We're trapped down here." He hesitated, swallowing hard. "Can you…"  _Do something?_  "They dosed you with demon blood. What's it doing to you?"

Cas closed his eyes again and shuddered. "Burning," he whispered.

Yeah, Sam could feel the heat radiating through Cas's coat where he was squeezing the angel's arm. But was it just burning through his vessel, or his grace, too?

Cas lifted a pain filled gaze back to Sam. "I'm sorry. I can't…" His face scrunched up as he choked back a groan and tried to curl in on himself.

Sam tightened his grip until the wave passed. "We'll get out of here, okay?" His voice cracked with the declaration, because he couldn't quite believe it himself, but he had to keep trying. He always had to keep trying. Maybe not for himself, but definitely for his friend. "Just hold on."

Cas craned his neck back to look around the cellar. "When they come back down…if you get an opening…" He coughed. "Go. I can- I can hold them off."

Sam's expression hardened. "I am not leaving without you."

Like the angel was in any shape to hold off a kitten. And couldn't Cas see that Sam needed him? Dean was gone, and Cas was the only family he had left.

"Sam," Cas said sadly. "I'm- I'm not going to make it."

"Don't say that," he snapped.

Cas averted his gaze. "Between the demon blood and angel bullet… Sam, please. If you get an opening, take it. Just  _run_."

" _No_. I am not losing you too." He cast his gaze around the dingy cellar desperately, but there was nothing they could use to aid their escape. No one to put their hope in.

Sam collapsed back onto the floor, the last of his energy leeched out by despair. "I won't get far, Cas," he said hoarsely. "I can't even walk, let alone run."

Cas's gaze drifted down toward Sam's foot, and then he shifted, reaching his cuffed hands out. Cold fingers brushed Sam's forehead, but nothing happened. Cas sagged, turning his cheek into the coarse concrete.

"I'm sorry," he whispered again.

Sam shook his head. "I'm the one who's sorry. You're only here because of me."

"This is not your fault."

Hot moisture pricked at the corners of his eyes and a lump settled in his throat. "I'm still sorry."

Cas was quiet for a moment. "So am I."

Sam would have laughed, the two of them such self-effacing martyrs, believing everything in the world fell upon their shoulders. He'd never really realized before just how much he and Cas had in common. Dean may have been the uniting factor for the first few years, but Sam and Cas had developed a friendship on their own since then.

Dean had still been the glue, though. And now he was gone, and Sam and Cas were left adrift without him. Both metaphorically and literally.

For here they were, laying next to each other on the floor of a dirty and dismal basement, dying by degrees.

* * *

The Impala's engine revved as Dean drove away from the veterinarian's clinic. Sam was alive. Shot in the leg, but that wasn't fatal, and he'd been stitched up by weasel-face back there. And Cas was…Dean didn't know how to put together the pieces of info he'd gotten on his angel friend.

Dread carved a pit in his stomach like acid. What the hell did this lady want, anyway?

"Now what?" Mom asked despondently.

"Well, we got her number," Dean replied. "Let's head back to the bunker and we'll put a trace on it."

Hopefully that British bitch wouldn't think them capable of doing that. But even if she did ditch her phone, that wouldn't stop Dean. He'd call Crowley if he had to. Or Rowena. Anyone to help him track this woman down and get his family back.

Screeching tires sounded a split second before something rammed into the rear side of the Impala with a crunch of metal. The passenger window shattered, and the car careened into a twisting skid. Dean slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel to try and regain control. The Impala jolted to a stop, and he looked over to find his mom lying across the bench seat, covered in glass shards.

"Mom?"

She didn't respond. Dean quickly reached for a pulse, and let out a breath of relief when he felt one that was strong and steady. He then scrambled out of the car and around the back, pausing just long enough to cast a dismayed look at the back side that was dented in, before coming over and opening the passenger side door. Leaning in, he carefully lifted his mom so she was upright, and his stomach clenched at the cut on her head that was streaming blood down the side of her face. But head injuries often bled freely, looking more serious than they actually were, Dean had to remind himself.

"Dean Winchester."

He jerked back and whirled around to find a woman leaning casually against the rear of the vehicle that had hit them. She had fresh blood on her cheek from the accident, but appeared unfazed as she smiled at him.

"I presume," she added with a smug smirk.

Dean stared at her with sinking realization as he marked her accent.

The woman pushed away from her vehicle and walked forward, arms linked behind her back. "You should be more careful with your location services on your phone."

Right.

"Are you one of them?" Dean asked, already knowing the answer.

Her mouth quirked. "I'm one of them."

A muscle in his jaw ticked. "Yeah," he muttered, and started forward.

She didn't even move as he grabbed her jacket with both hands. "You tell me where my brother and friend are, and I might take it easy on you." She seemed human, but Dean wasn't going to let that make him pull any punches, not if she didn't give him what he wanted.

She clucked her tongue. "Oh, please don't," she simpered.

Dean narrowed his eyes a fraction at her unbothered demeanor.

She suddenly swung her arms around and up between his, dislodging his grip on her coat, then swung at his head. He threw his arms up as a shield, but she punched him in the stomach, and shit that hurt. Bitch was wearing brass knuckles.

Dean twisted around, trying to get her in a headlock, but she slipped free and yanked his arm back until it cracked. He let out a grunt of pain and surprise. Grabbing his shoulder, she somehow flipped him backward onto the ground.

Dean groaned, but managed to scrabble back to his feet and reached for his gun—only to find it wasn't there.

"Looking for this?"

He whipped around as she held up his weapon, somehow having snatched it off him when they'd been fighting. She nonchalantly walked over and set it on the trunk of the Impala.

"So, round two?" she asked cheekily.

Dean gave her his own smirk—and drew an angel blade from the front fold of his jacket. He surged forward and swung the blade down, but she blocked and retaliated with a blow to his shoulder, and he nearly doubled over, clutching it. Okay, those brass knuckles were really not cool.

Dean shook it off, jaw tightening, and attacked again. She ducked and twisted around to trap his arms between her own, scissor chopping them so that the blade was knocked out of his hand. She then swung a fist around into his back. Dean staggered away with a pained grunt.

Dammit.

Shuffling back around, he aimed a punch at her midsection. She met it with those brass knuckles, which nearly broke his friggin' hand.

She then raised her leg and kicked him so hard he flew backward into the side of her SUV. He hit the ground, wincing as pain reverberated throughout his body.

A moment later, he heard the sound of a gun being cocked.

"You know, I would've thought for a strapping lad like yourself, you would've lasted a tad longer."

Dean rolled over and looked up to find the woman aiming his own gun at him.

"But hey, you know what they say. Good things come to those—"

The next word choked off as the tip of an angel blade suddenly punched through her sternum from the back and her eyes flew wide. The gun shifted and her finger reflexively squeezed the trigger, firing off a round into the concrete. Dean scrambled out of the way as the woman arched her arm and fired one more shot into the sky before falling to the ground, revealing Mary standing behind her, bloody angel blade in her hands.

Dean could only stare in shock at the body as his brain took a moment to catch up with him, and then he lifted his gaze to her. "Thanks, Mom."

Her breaths were coming audibly, apparently just as much in shock as he was. Dean stood in a rush, grimacing at the myriad of bruises that were blossoming across his body.

"Hey," he said, tentatively reaching a hand out to take the angel blade from her. She surrendered it, looking away. Dean swallowed hard, not knowing what to do.

He turned to the woman's body. They needed to get this cleaned up before anyone happened to drive by.

Snatching up his gun, Dean quickly stowed the weapons in the trunk of the Impala before going back and lifting the assassin's body and dumping her in the SUV. Dean took a moment to check her pockets, then the rest of the vehicle. It was a newer model, with a built-in GPS system. On a whim, Dean turned the keys in the ignition and started it up.

The last address punched into the navigation was for Aldrich, Missouri.

"Tourist," he muttered as he took a snapshot with his phone, and then slid into the driver's seat and moved the vehicle off the road into the bushes. He wiped the steering wheel and shut the engine off, and finished up by dragging some large tree branches over to conceal the SUV as best he could. Fortunately, the beige color wouldn't make it stand out very easily.

He finally made his way back to the Impala where his mom was sitting sideways in the open door of the back passenger seat, staring at her hands in her lap.

"Found an address in her car's navigation system," he reported, coming around and kneeling down by the open door. "Money's on Sam and Cas being around there."

"Good. That's great."

Dean's expression sobered. "You okay?"

Mom gave him a wan smile and shook her head. "No." She looked down as though embarrassed, and Dean was at a complete loss.

"I'm sorry, I just…" She fidgeted before looking up to meet his gaze again. "I spent my life running from this, from hunting. And I got out. I never wanted this for you and Sam."

Dean mentally rocked back. Even though he already knew this, he couldn't help but wonder in that moment if his mom was… _disappointed_  in him. For living the exact opposite life of what she'd wanted for her sons.

"Mom, I- I get it. I do," he said. "If I had kids, I wouldn't want them in this. But Sam and me…" He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "Saving people and hunting things, this is our life," he explained, hoping that she would understand. "I think we make the world a better place. I  _know_  that we do."

And he hoped that she would be proud of that.

Mom gazed back at him for a solemn moment, and then nodded in apparent acceptance. But it faded a second later, replaced with something private and haunted.

And Dean didn't know what to say to that.

So he stood up and pulled out his phone to do a map search of that address in Missouri. They were closing in now.

He just hoped Sam and Cas could hold on just a little longer.


	4. Chapter 4

Castiel couldn't stop shivering. He could feel the fire in his belly and simmering heat from the demon blood still in his system, which was entirely incongruent with the frigid chill that mercilessly wracked his body. The unforgiving concrete beneath him further leeched away what little warmth he craved, but it was a welcome rest for his arms, which he could barely move without stiffness after hanging in those chains for so long.

Sam lay a foot away, head lolling in half-consciousness as the agony from his wounds kept him from finding real rest. Castiel's heart gave a pang of regret that he couldn't heal him. His grace wasn't strong enough to heal himself.

Castiel closed his eyes in abject defeat. They were going to die down here. And not quickly. Who knew how far their tormentors would take things with Sam. And for himself…he didn't know how many more doses of demon blood he could endure before it burned him out completely, much as Lucifer's corrupt grace had been doing when the archangel was possessing him.

At least Sam would eventually see Dean again in Heaven. Castiel had to believe that. Had to trust that the two people he cared about more than anything would find peace in the end.

And speaking of peace, or at least making it before he died…

"I'm sorry," he croaked.

Sam's eyelids slid open, and he turned his head blearily. "I told you, Cas, this isn't your fault."

"Not for this," he said, though he was still sorry that he hadn't been faster or stronger to prevent them from being taken to begin with. "I'm sorry I let Lucifer out of the Cage. I'm sorry he almost killed you, that you had to endure additional torment from him, which you never should have been subjected to ever again. And now he's out there somewhere."

Sam let out a weary sigh. "I know you thought you were doing the right thing. And Lucifer really was our best shot at beating the Darkness."

"But he wasn't enough."

Castiel's final, desperate attempt to be of use wasn't enough.

"And now Dean is dead anyway. All I wanted was to keep you both safe. But I failed. I'm useless, Sam. Then. Now. I failed you both."

And now he would never get the chance to right his wrongs. Which, perhaps was for the best, anyhow. He never managed to make things right when he tried in the past, and always made them worse.

Sam rolled onto his side to fully face him. "We're not beaten yet," he said firmly. "We both survived being possessed by the Devil; we can survive this too."

Castiel lowered his gaze to the floor. His current wretched state certainly didn't lend credence to that statement. Yet he had to admire Sam's indomitable will in the face of insurmountable circumstances. It was what had allowed the young Winchester to beat the Devil the first time.

Sam had lived his entire life sacrificing to save others. This was not how he was supposed to meet his end. So Castiel decided that he would rally himself one last time, and do whatever it took to get Sam out of this.

He shifted, only to grit his teeth as agony shot through his stomach. "We- need to- remove the angel bullet," he gasped out haltingly. He craned his head back to look around, and spotted broken pieces of glass on the floor a few feet away. "Can you reach…?"

Sam followed his gaze, brow furrowing. "You can't be serious," he blurted.

"I just need you to make the opening bigger," Castiel assured him. "Then I can dig it out."

Sam threw him a horrified look. "Cas, I- I can't do that."

Castiel suppressed a sigh. "Alright. Then I will. But I can't…" He let out a grunt of frustration as he lifted his cuffed wrists in explanation. The sigiled cuffs were also a problem, blocking his grace, but one step at a time.

A muscle in Sam's jaw ticked, but he nevertheless lifted himself upright and stretched his arm out to pick up a large shard. Castiel held his hands out to take it, but Sam balked, his throat bobbing.

"You're shaking. I'll do it."

"It doesn't have to be precise," Castiel pointed out.

"You're not gonna instantly heal even after we get it out," Sam replied a tad sharply. "And I am not gonna sit here and watch you bleed out. I'll make the cut."

Castiel didn't have the strength to argue—nor was Sam incorrect about the healing. Between the Enochian handcuffs and demon blood, Castiel's grace was not only locked down, but fighting a losing battle against the toxic brimstone.

Still, if he was going to have any chance of helping Sam, he needed to get that bullet out, as it was definitely hampering his movements.

Castiel rolled onto his back, and Sam reached to undo the tourniquet their captors had seen fit to tie around his stomach. Sam then peeled his bloodstained shirt up, and sucked air through his teeth.

"You ready?" he asked.

Castiel nodded.

Sam pressed the jagged edge of glass to his flesh and began the incision. Castiel gritted his teeth and focused on not making a sound. Everything hurt so much more with his pain receptors on fire from the demon blood, but he couldn't let Sam stop.

Sam let out a shuddering breath. "Okay, um…"

Castiel reached down and stuck his fingers into the widened hole. Searing pain rocketed through him, but he didn't retract. Hot blood flowed freely around his hand, making his grip slick as he sought out the bullet he could feel lodged just a few centimeters further in. Nausea sloshed through his stomach, almost disrupting his efforts with the urge to vomit. This was so much worse than the last time. Castiel idly wondered if these British Men of Letters had learned about angel bullets from Crowley.

Holding his breath, he focused on the here and now. His fingers slipped over the celestial steel, and he clenched his jaw hard enough to crack something in his effort to grasp hold of the projectile. But he finally did, and pulled it out with a ragged gasp. He collapsed back on the floor, letting the bullet roll out of his hand.

Sam quickly bunched up the end of Castiel's trench coat and pressed it against his stomach, retying the tourniquet around it. Castiel couldn't quite muffle a strangled cry in the back of his throat, and he lay on the ground panting for several long moments.

"Okay, easy, easy," Sam rambled, gripping Castiel's shoulder tightly. "You okay?"

He forced himself to nod. Sam gave him a skeptical look, but it wasn't like that hadn't been a silly question to start with.

Sam rocked back, wincing as he pulled his bandaged foot in protectively. "Okay. I'll try to find something to pick the handcuffs with."

The door at the top of the stairs swung open with a creak, and Castiel's heart leaped into his throat as determined footsteps clomped down the stairs. He tried to muster the strength to get up, but as soon as he lifted himself, agony ripped through him, and he collapsed again. Digging the bullet out hadn't actually done him any favors, and he was just as helpless as before.

Sam lurched upward, yet before he could fully gain his feet, a cattle prod was thrust into his chest. Sam cried out as blue squiggles zinged into him, and he crashed to the floor.

Castiel snatched up the glass shard Sam had used on him, and lashed out at Toni Bevell's legs. The glass snagged on the fabric of her pantsuit, but managed to catch flesh as well, and she let out a sharp cry. Castiel rolled onto his stomach, pushing himself to his knees, but then she was driving the end of the cattle prod into his shoulder, sending searing voltages through his vessel. His muscles spasmed, and he dropped the piece of glass.

Gritting his teeth against the lightning storm in his body, Castiel grabbed the shaft and yanked it forward, out of Toni's hand. She staggered, almost losing her balance. Castiel swung the device around, intending to strike her, but the movement tore at his stomach wound, and he ended up curling forward, the blow falling short. Heels scuffed over concrete.

"No, don't!" he heard Sam shout.

Castiel raised his arms, determined to fight to the last breath, but something sharp jabbed him in the back of his shoulder blade, and fire exploded everywhere.

* * *

Sam blundered to his feet as Toni stabbed the blood filled syringe into Cas. The angel instantly went rigid, and then dropped to the floor with convulsions.  _No!_

Sam charged at her, intending to tackle her to the ground, but she whipped a hand up toward him and uttered a single word. Everything went white.

The next thing Sam knew, he was tied to the chair again. He jolted, giving the handcuffs a good yank, but they were secure. Terror seized his heart as he whipped his head around. Cas was on the floor in the same spot, with Toni standing over him. Her perfect hairdo had harried strands floating freely, and there was blood on a slit in her pants. Her chest was heaving from exertion.

Sam blinked furiously. Had he only lost a few moments? Long enough for Toni to get him tied down again. Dammit!

He snapped his gaze back to Cas, who had stopped all-out seizing but was shuddering in the throes of fever. His skin was ashen and sweat poured profusely down his face. The tourniquet Sam had cinched around his stomach was soaked in blood.

Sam gave his chains a vicious yank again, helpless fury swelling up inside him. He wanted to kill Toni Bevell, wished he'd finished the deed when he'd had the chance, rather than curbing the urge because she was a human. But there was nothing humane about her, and Sam was rueing that split moment of indecision and mercy.

Toni bent down and grabbed Cas's arms, hauling him more toward the center of the room where she looped the chain of the handcuffs around a stubbed pipe sticking up through a grate. She then shoved him with her foot to roll him onto his stomach, and planted a heel into the middle of his lower back.

"You know, I was keeping the angel around as a potential asset for the future," she remarked. "But the upkeep is getting tedious, so I think I'll just go ahead with the harvesting now." Toni lifted a bone-chillingly bland gaze toward Sam. "Have you ever seen an angel's wings, Sam?"

His spine jerked ramrod straight. What the…she wouldn't— _couldn't_ …

She angled a musing glance back down at Cas. "They're very difficult to manifest," she went on conversationally. "An angel's wings don't quite have a physical form on this plane, but it is possible to transmute feathers, which are very useful for numerous spells."

Sam tried to lunge forward, scraping the chair legs a fraction, though they were bolted to the floor. "Don't touch him," he snarled.

Toni ignored him, and started to recite what sounded like an Enochian incantation under her breath, the guttural words prickling the air and raising the hairs on the back of Sam's neck. He struggled harder against his bonds, as futile as it was, until something flickered like a mirage in the space above Cas, and Sam's breath caught in his throat.

The silhouette didn't have tangible form, but he could see the clear outline of a folded wingspan. Iridescent shimmers rippled down the amorphous bands into what looked like the contours of feathers.

Toni grabbed one wing and lifted it, splaying it out further, and Sam furrowed his brow in confusion, because there were obvious gaps in the vanes, places where the opalescent striations sputtered out or ended abruptly.

Toni clucked her tongue in disappointment. "As I suspected, there won't be many decent ones to harvest. It's been increasingly harder to acquire angel feathers since the angels fell."

Sam could only blink in dismay. Since the angels fell? That was three years ago. Was she saying Cas's wings had been like  _that_  all this time? Sam felt sick to his stomach. Of course; why else would the angels all suddenly lose the ability to fly? And he'd never…he'd never asked Cas how he was holding up, or, god, if he needed medical attention. There was an angle in the wing that looked like it had broken and healed wrong.

With one hand on the humerus of the wing, Toni reached down and continued to utter a spell as she closed her fist around the coruscating apparition, and yanked. Where there had been nothing but wobbling air before, was now filled with a handful of very real, very solid black feathers.

Toni canted a considering look at them before letting the feathers fall behind her and reaching to pluck out another chunk.

"Stop!" Sam yelled, straining against his chains until his foot spasmed from the effort. He let out a garbled cry. "Just stop!"

Toni paused, mouth pursing in a thoughtful moue. "Is this what it will take for you to cooperate, Sam? I must say, if I'd known you held the halo in such dear regard, I would have started on him sooner. Because the British Men of Letters have learned lots of fascinating ways of hurting an angel."

Sam's throat tightened, and he swallowed hard.

Toni removed her heel from Cas's back and straightened. "What will it be, Sam? Information? Or some demonstrations?"

Sam's chin quavered as he stared back at her. He knew he couldn't give in, couldn't give her what she wanted. It was one thing to take the torture himself; he was used to it. But to let Cas take it for him? On his account? That was worse.

But Sam knew deep down that if Cas were conscious, he'd staunchly insist on bearing the torment. Because they'd both been to Hell before. Sam had told Toni he'd been tortured by the Devil, and there was nothing she could do to him that would compare, and the same could be said of Cas.

Yet at the same time, what would be the point? What were they still fighting for? Another chance to escape? The longer things went on, the less likely they'd get that chance, let alone be in any shape to take it. As it was, neither of them was capable of making it anywhere at the moment anyway.

"Well," Toni finally said when he hadn't answered either way. "You have until the demon blood starts to wear off to make up your mind. After all, it wouldn't be very useful to torture him while he's unconscious."

And with that, she turned on her heel and strode back upstairs, locking them in once more.

Sam wrenched at his chains one last time, then looked at his friend lying face down on the concrete floor, still shivering in his febrile state. "Cas? Cas!"

But of course the angel was too far gone. A small part of Sam hoped Cas didn't wake up at all, because he didn't want to see his friend get tortured. He didn't doubt Toni's claim that she knew how to hurt an angel.

But his heart also clenched at the thought of being left completely alone. If Cas slipped away, Sam would have nothing left to hold on to.

He tipped his head back against a swell of tears and closed his eyes in despair.

* * *

Dean pulled the Impala to a stop along a stretch of dirt road outside what looked like an empty farmhouse, but it was the address Miss Brass-Knuckles had had in her rental vehicle, so it was worth taking a look around.

He put the car in park and turned the engine off, then pushed his door open. Mom got out of the passenger side as well, which gave Dean a jolt of anxiety.

"Wait," he blurted. "Uh, okay. Why don't I take this one solo, okay? We just—we don't know what we're walking into here."

She gave him a stoic look in return. "We never know. We're hunters."

Dean blinked at his mom calling herself that, given her not so secret aversion to the profession. "Right. Um…" Crap, how was he supposed to say this? He'd just have to go for it. "Okay, I- I can't do my job if I'm worried about you."

She'd just gotten back from being dead for thirty years, and had just been in a minor car accident. Now was not the time to try to remember rusty skills.

Her expression softened with understanding, and she smiled with a nod. "Dean." And didn't that tone sound parental. "You won't have to be. I can handle myself."

Maybe in her time, but now…

"Okay?" she went on. "Alright, good talk." Mom patted his shoulder and turned toward the farmhouse, leaving him momentarily flabbergasted.

"Oh boy," he uttered, and hurried after her. "Mom…"

She spun on her heel to face him. "I'm your mother. You have to do what I say."

Wha- um, what the heck was he supposed to say to that?

Mom shook her head. "Look. They targeted the bunker. They obviously know a lot about you and Sam. They'll be expecting you. I'm the last person they'd expect."

Well, okay, she did have a point there.

"Okay, yeah, but just…let me take a look around first."

She opened her mouth to argue, but Dean cut her off.

"Like you said, they won't be expecting you. So you hang back and cover me if things turn hot."

Her mouth pressed into a displeased line, but Dean didn't give her a chance to debate the plan, and quickly moved past her to approach the house.

He headed around back, bringing his gun out as he surveyed the property. Everything was quiet, and really did give off the feel of being abandoned. Dean hoped that was just a facade.

He carefully made his way through a half constructed shed, sheet plastic old and dusty where it hung from barren support beams. A thud sounded somewhere in the distance, and he turned toward it with a frown. Around the side of the house was a cellar door. Given there was nothing else around that could have made that kind of noise, he reached for the handle to open it, gun at the ready. But it was latched from the inside and wouldn't budge.

He took a step back and gazed up to search the windows on the second story. He couldn't see any movement, but the panes were the distorted kind of glass, not allowing for any clear visibility. Seemed like he'd have to take a look inside.

Static prickled up his spine, and he glanced down at the dirt where thin lines of a symbol were beginning to glow. He let out a curse as the light intensified, swallowing him whole with a whoosh.

The concussive force knocked him flat on his back and left him winded for several long moments. He was also completely blind, unable to see anything but white. He tried to roll over, but the movement left him so woozy, he only managed to pitch face first into the dirt. Guess he had the right place after all.

There was a clank of metal, and then heavy manacles were being latched around his wrists. He tried to wrench away, to fight back, but he still couldn't see, and his balance was totally thrown. He was chained easily and then left to lay on the ground as the effects of that sigil slowly began to wear off.

When they did, Dean found a blonde woman in a pantsuit standing over him.

"Dean Winchester," she said, heavy on the British accent. It was the same voice as the one on the vet's phone. "What a pleasure to finally meet you."

"You too," he groaned, trying to push himself upright. His arms were weighted down by huge iron chains that looked like they belonged in a medieval dungeon.

She reached down and gripped his arm, hauling him to his feet. She then started shoving him toward the house.

"Where's my brother?" Dean snapped.

"Inside," she said cheerfully.

Well, that was something. Dean focused on not tripping as he was dragged into the house and led down a hall to a door with a bolted latch on it. The woman shoved him against the wall and went to open it, pausing in the threshold to look down into what Dean assumed was the cellar.

And then he heard his brother's blessed voice drifting up.

"Screw yourself."

_That's my boy_ , Dean thought idly before the woman was reaching over and dragging him into view. The basement was dim, but Sam was sitting tied to a chair in the middle where a shaft of sunlight was partially illuminating him. His eyes widened in sheer dismay.

"Dean."

And if that one word didn't fracture his heart, because he knew Sam had thought him dead and gone, and this wasn't the reunion they should have been having.

"I'm as happy to see him as you are," the woman said, and started pushing Dean down the stairs.

As his eyes adjusted to the lighting, he spotted Cas laying on the floor, arms stretched taut and a handcuff chain looped around a spoke. He looked completely unconscious. And now that Dean was closer, he could see Sam wasn't in great shape, either, skin glistening with grimy sweat and bandages around his thigh and foot.

Fury surged up in Dean, but when he started to turn back to his captor, she shoved him roughly in front of Sam.

"Now we don't have to wait for the angel to wake up," she said gleefully. "I can snap Dean's body apart joint by joint. Can you watch that happen, Sam?"

She grabbed Dean's chains and yanked him to the side, tossing them up to loop around a hook in a beam above his head. Great, like getting strung up and tortured wasn't old hat for him at this point.

She then walked over to a table where a bunch of torture instruments were laid out, and picked up a set of brass knuckles. Dean wanted to groan. Not those again.

The woman slipped them on, and then turned to walk straight toward him, expression flinty. Without warning, she punched him in the side of the face. His head snapped back and blackness briefly encroached on his vision as he dangled in the chains. Okay, he really hated those things.

"Passcodes, Sam," the woman said mildly.

Passcodes to what?

Sam didn't say anything, and she sighed.

"Not yet," she said in dubious defeat, and walked back to the table.

Dean spat a glob of blood on the floor.

The woman angled a look over at him. "Anything to add?"

"No," Dean grunted, vision starting to clear again. And was that a friggin' teacup on that table with the knives and scalpels? He grinned impudently through bloody teeth. "No, I just came by for some tea and a beating."

She picked up the cup. "Really? See, I thought you might be on for a little chat about your mate, Benjamin Lafitte."

Dean stared at her. What?

Her lips quirked. "I'm sorry. You called him Benny. You know, the vampire whom you released from Purgatory and befriended."

What the frickin' hell? How the hell did these ass-clowns know about Benny? And what business was it of hers, anyway?

"I see," she said, adopting a feigned smile. "Well, the English are nothing if not patient."

She set the teacup down and picked up the brass knuckles again.

Dean glanced at his brother, who was giving him a pained look. Heels clacked on the concrete as the woman strode toward Dean again.

Crap, this had not gone to plan at all.


	5. Chapter 5

Sam had squeezed his eyes shut and tried to block out the pained grunts and sounds of metal striking flesh not three feet away as Toni continued to bludgeon Dean without mercy. Until she took a staggered step and winced, gaze going to her leg where Cas had cut her with the glass. She must not have had time to patch it up before Dean had arrived—and fallen into her trap.

Now she was gone, giving them a short reprieve.

Sam lolled his head back to look at his brother. "Dean."

Oh god, he was real, and he was  _here_.

Though his big brother looked like hammered crap, Dean still managed a goofy smile. "Hey."

"I thought you were dead."

_We thought you were dead_. Sam spared a glance at Cas, but he was still out.

"I'm not sure that I'm not," Dean replied, letting out a spent grunt.

"So—"

"I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything, okay? First off, what the hell did she do to Cas?"

Sam's jaw ticked. "She's been keeping him drugged with demon blood."

Dean's eyes widened in horror. "Demon blood? What the hell?"

"After shooting him in the stomach with an angel bullet," Sam added. "We only just dug it out not too long before you got here." A lump hardened in his throat. "He won't heal, though, not with that poison in him."

Dean's expression darkened with the promise of violence. "Alright, who is Angry Spice, anyway?"

"She, uh- she's- she's Men of Letters." Jeez, saying it out loud didn't make it any more believable. They'd been under the impression all of them had been wiped out. "Uh, British Men of Letters," he corrected wryly.

"Is that a thing?" Dean asked. "Well, what the hell? Aren't we supposed to be on the same team?"

Before Sam could tell him more, the door unlatched, and Toni started down the stairs again. Sam's heart rate ratcheted up. No, not more. He couldn't watch more…

"Oh, god," Dean groaned, dropping his head against his arms.

"Gentlemen," she greeted perkily. She'd changed clothes and redone her hair to appear as pristine as ever. "So, to recap—you live in the Men of Letters bunker, awash in the world's greatest collection of occult knowledge, and yet you know 'nothing,'" she finished with mild air quotes.

Dean tried to shrug, though the chains hampered his movement. "Right. What a waste." He chuckled dryly, but the flippant mannerism was ruined by the coughing it turned into.

"It seems you apes have never read a single book," she responded. "The Men of Letters has a long tradition of intellectual excellence. In London, we've undertaken exhaustive studies of even the most arcane topics." She picked up an ice-pick looking instrument and ran her finger along the side in admiration.

Sam's stomach flipped as Dean shot him an alarmed look.

Toni spun around. "For example, parts of the body most sensitive to intense pain."

She walked up to Dean and grabbed his face, pressing her fingers into the soft parts of his cheeks. He stared back at her defiantly.

"The ear drum," she said, pointing the tip of the pick toward his ear. She moved it toward his mouth. "Decaying tooth. Below the belt, of course."

Dean's eyes flew wide at that one.

"And my favorite," she went on, squeezing his face harder. "Under the eyelid."

Sam jerked in his chains. No, god, please, no.

Toni leaned in close to Dean's face. "Did you know it's possible to die from pain?"

Dean staunchly stared straight ahead, bracing himself. Sam struggled harder, heart rate going into overdrive.

The sound of a gun cocking echoed through the basement, and Sam whipped his head around, only to freeze as he found himself looking at a ghost. A ghost holding a gun pointed at Toni.

"Get away from my boys."

The oxygen left Sam's lungs in a breathless whoosh. "Mom?"

Dean leaned around Toni, who was also frozen in surprise. "Yeah," he said with pride.

Sam could only sputter as none other than Mary Winchester strode forward, veering toward the table to snatch a set of keys off it. She gestured to the torture implement in Toni's hand. "Drop it."

Toni slowly tossed the item away.

"Ground."

Toni didn't move, and Mom surged forward to clobber her in the face with the butt of her gun, knocking her down behind Sam's chair. She then handed Dean the keys, and he quickly went to work on his shackles.

Mom stepped around him and held her gun toward Toni's face. "That's the ground."

Sam blinked rapidly as he twisted to keep the two women in view, wondering if he was hallucinating again. If both Dean  _and_  Mom were back from the dead, then maybe this wasn't even real. But it was definitely  _surreal_.

Toni suddenly surged upward and knocked the gun away. A shot cracked the air, and Sam wrenched his neck to see what was happening. But then Toni was throwing an elbow into his face, and stars burst across his vision. He heard a grunt from Dean and rattle of chains before he managed to shake off his daze.

Toni was already storming back toward their mom, and punched her in the throat. She let out a gasping wheeze and clutched her neck, which gave Toni the opening to follow up with a successive blow to the stomach. Toni then flung Mom into the wall.

Dean frantically worked the key in the lock of his shackles, finally getting one undone. He paused to look at the fight, which Sam could barely see now from where he was stuck in the chair, but he heard the blows and Mom's grunts of pain behind him. And then the sound of wood breaking as something large and heavy crashed into it.

"Holy crap," Dean uttered, returning his attention to his bindings. He got the last shackle unlocked, and Sam felt a thrill of hope as his brother scrambled out of the chains to go help their mom.

Only, that was the moment Toni suddenly let out a yelp, and Mom was suddenly driving the other woman back, punch after punch, until Toni stumbled backwards and slammed into the wall. Sam strained against his chains, desperate to do  _something_.

A gunshot exploded behind him, and he instinctively ducked down. Shit. Dean had fired into the ceiling, and was now pointing the weapon at Toni.

Sam should have known the British Woman of Letters wouldn't go down without a fight. He saw her snatch up a piece of broken glass from the sink where he'd smashed the mirror, and deftly slice her own hand. She thrust her palm toward Mom.

"Xi."

Mom's eyes flew wide and she started to suck in gulping gasps as her hands shot up to her throat. The oxygen punched from Sam's lungs as well.  _No!_

Dean started forward. "Kill the spell now. I'm not kidding."

Toni lifted her chin. "Shoot me, and your mother has no chance."

Mom dropped to her knees, slowly suffocating right in front of them.

"The gun," Toni said pointedly, holding out her other hand.

Sam twisted to look at Dean, torn between pleading for his brother to just do what she said, and to not give in. Because Toni would torture them all and make Sam watch. But he couldn't watch his mom die, either.

Dean abruptly uncocked the gun, and in one fluid movement, moved forward to give it to Toni. Yet the moment he placed it in her hand, he suddenly punched her in the face, and she went down hard.

Sam's heart nearly stopped. "Dean!"

But then Mom sucked in a harsh breath, and Dean hurried to her side.

"It's okay. She was using a Chinese mind-control technique. Hard to do when you're unconscious."

Sam was breathing as raggedly as Mom, shock and horror still gripping his heart as he stared at her. She waved Dean off, and he quickly moved toward Sam with the keys.

"Turns out this ape did read a book or two," he commented as he unlocked Sam's cuffs.

Sam wrenched his arms forward as soon as he was free, and rubbed at his bruised wrists. Dean slipped past him and bent down at Cas's head to undo the angel's chains next.

"Well played," a new voice spoke, and they all jerked ramrod straight at the newcomer they hadn't noticed entered the cellar—a man with a scruffy face and British accent.

Sam pushed himself to his feet shakily, instantly on guard and wishing he had a weapon.

The man regarded them with a small smile and almost impressed mien. "Mick Davies," he introduced himself. His gaze slid over to Toni, and he clucked his tongue disapprovingly. "I see we've gotten off on the wrong foot."

Sam's brows shot upward. "The wrong foot? Would that be the one you like to take a blowtorch to?" he said scathingly.

Dean threw him a sharp look before his gaze snapped to Sam's bandaged foot. He swiftly stood up and placed himself in front of Cas's body. "British Men of Letters, huh? What the hell do you want from us?" he demanded.

Mick sighed. "What you were told is basically true. We were keen on knowing about the two of you, seeing as you seem to be… _partially_  carrying on the Men of Letters' work here, now that the American chapter is defunct."

Sam's gaze flicked to the side where Toni was slowly getting up off the floor. But rather than say anything or make a threatening move, she merely folded her arms across her chest and kept her head down almost demurely.

"So you sic your attack dog on us to what, say hi?" Dean snapped.

Mick pursed his mouth. "Well, part of our group suspect some kind of malfeasance amongst you American Hunters. No argument—Lady Bevell went too far. I deeply apologize."

Sam scoffed and shook his head in disgust. Seriously? An apology was what they were getting for being kidnapped and  _tortured_?

"She'll face consequences in London," Mick assured them, like she was an errant school girl who was going to get detention.

"I'll tell you what," Dean said. "Why don't you take a walk, and she can face those consequences right here and now?"

Mick's expression faltered, and he gazed at Dean as though unsure whether to take him seriously or not. But Sam could tell from his brother's tone that Dean was dead serious. Mick finally saw it, too, because a muscle in his cheek twitched, and he shook his head soberly.

"She's ours. We'll take care of her. Now," he added, adopting that annoyingly chipper tone again. "I'm here to extend an olive branch. We want to work with you—"

"Let me ask you a question," Sam interrupted softly, on the verge of crashing from pure exhaustion. But they weren't completely safe yet. "Uh, Mick is it? Why would we believe any of this?"

Mick gave a small shrug. "Lads…if I wasn't sincere, if I meant you harm, there's a dozen ways I could've come in here and taken you all prisoner, instead of being unarmed." He lifted the fold of his coat as evidence, showing he wasn't carrying.

Sam's jaw tightened. He still wasn't convinced. And this was the first they were seeing of Mick, not to mention there didn't seem to be any sign of that other woman. So by Sam's count, these British Men of Letters were now outnumbered with Dean and Mom here too.

He cast a quick look at Cas, still unconscious, and his stomach clenched. They needed to get out of here,  _now_.

Mick sighed, and took a step forward. Sam tensed, as did Dean and Mom, and Mick pulled up short, but he was just holding out a business card.

"My number." He inched sideways to set it on the table instead. "Take your time, cool down, and just think it over. And what have you got to lose, except your worst nightmares?"

The way he smiled turned Sam's stomach. No. No, they were not doing this.

"Get out," he said in a low, menacing tone.

Mick hesitated for only a second before gesturing for Toni to get going. None of the three Winchesters took their eyes off of them until they had ascended the stairs and disappeared into the floor above.

Dean then turned and dropped down beside Cas again, reaching for the angel's shoulder. "Cas?"

Sam limped over, wanting to check his friend, but knowing that if he got down on the ground now, he wouldn't be able to get up again. His legs were already starting to shake as the last dregs of his strength reserves were depleted.

Dean rolled Cas over and then recoiled at the huge blood stain on Cas's front. "What the hell?"

"Is he still bleeding?" Sam asked worriedly. "We didn't have time to be careful getting the bullet out."

Dean shot him a startled look before quickly ducking his head to check underneath the tourniquet. "Shit," he muttered. "It's not bleeding very much," he hastily added, before Sam could panic that Cas was bleeding out because of his haphazard field surgery. "But it, uh, looks pretty bad."

Sam knew that already. "We need to get out of here. How far is the bunker?" He didn't think they could have traveled that far. He hoped not, at least.

Dean looked up to give him a cursory once-over. "Bunker's six hours from here. You need a hospital?"

Sam glanced down at his foot. He hadn't checked the wound to see how bad it was. But he suspected the Brits had treated it properly. It wouldn't do any good for their prisoner to die of sepsis before they got the information they wanted.

"No," he replied. There were medical supplies at the bunker. "They wouldn't be able to help Cas anyway."

"Right," Dean muttered, and reached out to feel Cas's forehead. "Shit, he's burning up."

Mom stepped up beside Sam. "That's an angel?" she asked dubiously.

Sam started slightly at her being so close, still off balance that she was here and  _alive_. What the hell had his brother been up to after going to confront Amara?

"He's looked better," Sam replied weakly.

"Okay," Dean said, and paused to look around the cellar. "Mom, try the keys on that door," he said, nodding to the chained outer door that wouldn't be as much of a climb as the steps up to the house, and handing her the key ring.

Sam swayed slightly, but he gritted his teeth and forced himself to breathe through his nose and stay standing. He had to hold on long enough to make it to the car of his own power. Dean had his hands full with Cas.

"Dean," he said abruptly. "Grab the feathers."

His brother quirked a brow. "Feathers?" But then he finally seemed to register the black feathers laying around Cas, and first his brows rose in dismay, and then furrowed into ire. "Son-of-a-bitch. Are these…?"

"Cas's," Sam finished darkly. "Toni had a spell that let her touch his wings and pluck them out. We should take them with us, in case they come back. They can be used for spells," he explained unnecessarily.

"I should have shot them both," Dean growled as he shifted on his knees to gather up the feathers and stuff them inside the fold of his jacket.

There was a click and creak of wood, and Sam looked over as Mom threw the cellar doors wide open. She then hurried back to them.

"Dean, do you need help?"

"I got it," he replied, already pulling one of Cas's arms over his shoulder to heft him up in a fireman's carry. "You help Sam."

Mom took his arm and slung it over her shoulder, and though he was taller than her, Sam couldn't help but lean some of his weight against her. He was fading fast.

The sight of the Impala filled his heart with a pang of joy, and he felt tears of relief burn at the corners of his eyes. It was over. He was going home. With his family.

* * *

Castiel came to groggily, and wished he was still unconscious. Or dead. He certainly felt like roadkill, as humans might say. There was a rumbling beneath him that jostled every aching joint and muscle in his body. He was in a car? Slumped against the door, it seemed. Sam. Where was Sam?

He tried to push himself up, vaguely registering that his hands weren't cuffed anymore.

"Cas?" a familiar voice said at his ear.

"Sam?" he coughed. He managed to turn his head, and found Sam beside him, leaning over worriedly. He had a split second of recognition that this looked and felt like the backseat of the Impala. But how could that be?

"It's okay, we're out," Sam rushed to tell him. "It's over."

Castiel squeezed his eyes shut as pain rolled over him, followed by a violent sloshing in his stomach. He had just enough presence of mind to notice that Sam's hands were on his shoulder and arm, and therefore not on the steering wheel. "Who's driving? Tell them to stop the car."

The vehicle lurched as someone pressed the brake abruptly, just as Sam said, "Dean."

Castiel didn't have time to process that as he frantically pushed the door open and nearly tumbled out, stomach heaving. Acidic bile spewed out on the ground, burning its way up his throat. His muscles contracting made the wound in his gut spasm, and Castiel couldn't hold back a garbled cry as more caustic lava surged up. Strong hands held his shoulders to keep him from falling out of the car.

Castiel retched one last time, and then sagged in Sam's arms, breathing raggedly. He was utterly spent, and wanted to slip into oblivion again, but he couldn't allow himself to, not yet, not until he'd confirmed Sam was truly safe.

Gravel crunched outside the vehicle on Castiel's side, and a pair of boots came into view, scuffing pebbles and dirt over the puddle of sick. Then whoever it was squatted down in the open doorway, and Castiel blinked at the blurry silhouette in front of him. His heart jolted.

" _Dean_?"

Dean Winchester gave him a small smile. "Yeah."

Castiel sputtered in disbelief. "You're alive?" Alive, yet covered in bruises and abrasions. "What about the bomb and the Darkness? What happened?" He choked off as a fit of coughing punched up from his chest, also jarring his wound.

Dean reached out to grip his shoulder. "Easy, easy, I'll tell you everything. I owe Sam an explanation, too, but he only just woke up a few minutes ago. You two pretty much slept through the whole drive back. Bunker's half an hour away."

Then, Dean had rescued them? Had searched for and somehow found them? Castiel's mind was reeling with all the blanks that needed filling in. He also finally noticed there was a woman sitting in the front passenger seat, profile angled as though she wanted to see what was going on, yet also didn't want to intrude. Castiel opened his mouth to ask who she was, but a pulse of pain had him rocking back against the seat with a gasp.

"Easy," Sam murmured in his ear, still bracing him.

Dean's eyes narrowed a fraction. "You healing any?" he asked tentatively.

Castiel swallowed, and dropped his gaze. No, he wasn't. In fact, everything was burning yet he was freezing at the same time, and he was afraid that if they resumed driving, his stomach might insist on throwing up again.

"The bunker's not far?" he asked instead.

Dean looked over him toward Sam with an unreadable look. "Yeah."

Then he only needed to make it until then. Then Sam would be safe, and Dean would be safe.

And after that, nothing else mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we get two whole chapters of some much needed comfort. ^_^


	6. Chapter 6

Dean managed to tell his entire story by the time they made it back to the bunker, and even got Sam's version of events on what went down with Psycho-Lady Bevell. Cas didn't contribute anything, and every time Dean glanced in the rearview mirror, his worry steadily increased at the sight of the angel curled against the door and shivering uncontrollably.

He pulled into the bunker's garage and shut off the engine before climbing out. Sam pushed his door open, but stopped there, breathing heavily as though trying to muster the strength to get out of the car. Dean hadn't forgotten about his brother's injured foot that had apparently had a  _blowtorch_  taken to it. Cas didn't move at all.

Mom came around the back and glanced at Sam before looking to Dean as though awaiting instructions. She had half a dozen cuts and bruises on her own face, which reminded Dean that his entire body felt like one big bruise.

Crap, he didn't know who to help first.

"There's a cargo elevator in the back," he said. They'd never used it, but hopefully it was still functional. He finally moved to help his brother out of the car.

Sam accepted the hand up, gritting his teeth as he put weight on his bandaged foot. "I'm good," he grunted. "Help Cas."

Dean gave him a doubting look, but Sam was at least keeping his feet, even though it looked excruciating. Mom stepped in to give Sam a supportive arm, so Dean shut the back door and went around to the other side. Baby's crushed rear end made the anger simmering inside him turn up a notch. She took her hits as much as they did.

But they were home and together, and that was the win.

Or so Dean was stubbornly holding onto as he opened the back door and leaned in to haul Cas out. The angel's legs turned to jello as soon as he was out of the car, and he would have face-planted on the concrete floor if Dean hadn't quickly slung one arm over his shoulder.

"Almost there, buddy," he grunted, turning to drag Cas toward the elevator where Mom and Sam already were.

The thing squeaked and groaned as the motor engaged, but otherwise steadily took them down to the lower level where it opened up close to the storage rooms, but at least it wasn't far from there to the dormitory wing.

Dean cast a quick glance over everyone's injuries and decided the bathroom might be the best place to stop in first. There was a basic first aid kit in there, but he'd need to hit the infirmary for more heavy duty stuff. He wanted to get a look at Sam's foot, despite his brother's attempts to put it off.

He veered toward the communal bathroom, which had four locker room style shower stalls in the back, a row of four sinks along the right wall, four toilet stalls along the left, and three benches set in the middle. Dean eased Cas down onto one, and the angel gripped the edges tightly to keep himself upright.

Sam had fortunately followed them in, so there wouldn't be any need for browbeating there.

"Sit down, let me see that foot," Dean instructed.

Sam shook his head. "I think I want to get cleaned up first."

Dean frowned. "You shouldn't get it wet." Burns could be nasty, and they didn't need the gauze sticking.

"I know," Sam replied tiredly. "I'll be careful."

"I can help," Mom offered.

Sam's eyes rounded in embarrassment. "I got it. Uh, thanks."

Mom just gave him a look. "Sam, from my perspective, yesterday you were in diapers."

Sam's throat bobbed. "Yeah, um, that's…I can handle it." He started shuffling toward the shower stalls.

Dean grumbled to himself. "Alright, I'll get more first aid and a change of clothes for you." And for Cas. Dean cast a hesitant look at the angel where he was shuddering on the bench seat. "Mom, can you, uh, just keep an eye on them?"

She nodded. "Of course."

"Okay." Dean tore himself away and hurried through the corridors to the infirmary, grabbing a bunch of medical supplies he'd need for treating burns and gun shot wounds, just in case that vet had done a shoddy job on Sam's leg. He hoped in the back of his mind that Cas would have started healing, but deep down he knew better.

On his way back, he stopped in his room, then Sam's, to grab some clean clothes. Cas was closer to Dean's size.

He returned to the bathroom with arms full, and deposited the supplies on the sink counter. The water was running in the back. Cas hadn't moved, but Mom now had a hand on his shoulder as though helping to keep him propped up, and he was swaying under it, eyes half lidded. She glanced up from watching the angel with a pinched expression.

Frowning, Dean came around and took Cas's burning face in his hands. "Hey, look at me."

Cas sluggishly dragged his eyelids upward, his eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed. He looked even worse than when he'd been under that attack dog curse and the image was bringing back some bad memories, because Cas had almost  _died_  from that and they'd only just gotten him back from Lucifer…

"What do I do, Cas? How do I fix this?" Dean asked earnestly.

Cas let out a shuddering breath. "Don't- don't worry…about me," he wheezed. "Sam…"

"Sam's walking and talking. You look like you're on the verge of passing out. How bad is demon blood poisoning an angel?"

Cas's eyes slid closed again. "My grace…it's not strong enough… I'm sorry. I can't heal Sam. I can't heal any of you." He briefly flicked a pained look at Mom, then back at Dean.

"That is literally the last thing that matters right now." None of  _them_  had any life threatening injuries. And if Cas couldn't heal them, he certainly couldn't heal himself.

"Alright, let's get you cleaned up and in a bed," Dean said, needing to take action. He took hold of the trench coat and started to tug it off, but Cas flinched away, curling in on himself tighter. "Dude, come on, you're covered in blood."

"I- freezing," Cas admitted softly.

Dean's mouth turned down further. "Trust me, you're really not. But we'll get you into some clean clothes and it will help."

Cas didn't recoil this time when Dean started prying the layers off, but neither was he much help. Each tug of the sleeve had him nearly pitching to this side or that one, and it was only with Mom's assistance that he didn't fall off the bench. His shivering increased once he was down to just the dirty dress shirt, but even that had to come off.

Dean sucked in a sharp breath at the wound in Cas's stomach, which also brought back memories of finding his friend bleeding out in the middle of the road, also from a gut shot. And from digging the bullet out. Jeez.

Dean leaned down to get a closer look. Yeah, he was gonna have to stitch this, because it didn't look any better than when he'd quickly checked back in that cellar in Missouri. And he was rueing pretending it would be, because leaving the wound untended wasn't doing Cas any favors.

"Okay," he breathed out. "Hang on just a little longer, okay, buddy? I'll try to be as quick as I can."

He grabbed a hand towel from the bathroom cupboard and ran it under the sink before coming back and starting to clean the dried blood splattered across Cas's torso. Mom grabbed a towel herself and came over to help, making the work go much more quickly. They then eased Cas down to lie on the bench so Dean could suture the gaping hole in his stomach. It wasn't easy with how violently Cas was trembling.

The shower in the back shut off, and Dean paused halfway through the stitching to bring his brother that change of clothes. He then hurried back to finish up with Cas, because he needed to check Sam over next, and Mom needed her own set of bandages and an ice pack.

The stitches weren't the neatest he'd ever done, but they would hold, and Dean was still counting on Cas's grace to bounce back from this eventually, so he finished it off with a medicated gauze patch and then hauled Cas up into an upright position again to wrap more bandages around his torso.

Unlike Sam, Cas didn't seem to have any issues with modesty, or he was in too much misery to care as Dean and Mom then helped him change into a pair of sweat pants and t-shirt. At this point, the angel could barely keep his eyes open and he couldn't seem to stop shaking.

Sam limped his way out, hair dripping, and roughly dropped onto one of the other benches, pulling his leg up to clutch at his foot.

Dean left Cas leaning against Mom and went over. "Let's see it."

A muscle in Sam's jaw ticked, and Dean knew they were both bracing themselves. But it had to be done.

Sam slowly started picking at the bandage. He'd managed to keep most of it dry, but that wasn't gonna make it any easier to get off. Dean wanted to step in and just do it quickly himself, but sometimes causing pain after someone's been tortured wasn't the best approach.

So he waited, jaw just as clenched. When the gauze finally came all the way off, his stomach churned at the sight. Sam made a choking noise and looked away, a greenish tint to his skin now.

Dean swallowed hard, and went to grab the saline and burn cream off the counter. A part of him wished Cas could just heal Sam. Because then they'd both be fine and Dean wouldn't have this worry festering in his gut that he could still lose them, after everything.

But though the burn was severe, it had been cleaned properly, and as long as they kept it that way, Sam would recover. With a gnarly scar, no doubt, but maybe once Cas was better too, the angel could make it disappear.

Dean cleaned and rewrapped Sam's foot as quickly as he could, doing his best to tune out his little brother's pained grunts and whimpers throughout the process.

"What about the gunshot in your leg?" Dean asked.

Sam blinked at him.

"The vet told us he patched you up," he explained.

"It's fine," his brother replied hoarsely. "I checked it. Stitches are holding and it's not infected."

Dean's mouth pressed into a thin line, wanting to check for himself, but he could see both his patients were past their limits, and he needed to get them into beds.

Dean glanced between them. "Okay, um…"

"Get Cas settled first," Sam said.

"Your room is closer," Dean offered, but his brother shook his head staunchly.

"I may be slow, but I can make it on my own."

Dean arched a pointed brow at him.

"Seriously," Sam insisted. "Like you said, it's close."

Dean shook his head with a scowl, but nevertheless turned back to Cas. "Fine. But if you fall flat on your ass, you know I'm gonna hear it echo down these walls, and I'm gonna come back and tell you I told you so."

"Whatever you say, jerk," Sam muttered.

"Bitch," he automatically replied, and a stitch in his chest loosened because his baby brother hadn't been broken in that cellar. He was roughed up, sure, and recovery would be slow, but Sam would be okay.

Dean wasn't so confident yet about Cas…

He slung the angel's arm over his shoulder, and Mom ducked in to take Cas's other side, and together they carried him down the corridor. Dean picked the room next to Sam's to put the angel in, because then he'd at least be able to check on them both more easily.

Mom slipped out of the hold and quickly turned down the covers, and then Dean eased Cas onto the mattress, finishing with pulling the covers back up and tucking them in around him.

"Maybe I should go help Sam," Mom suggested.

Dean nodded gratefully. Let Sammy argue with  _her_.

He grabbed another blanket from the closet and spread it out on top of the coverlet. "There. Warmer?"

Cas's eyes opened to slits. "No," he moaned miserably.

Dean grimaced in sympathy. "Yeah, that's the fever." He ran a hand down his face, not knowing what to do for his friend.

"I'm sorry," Cas whispered.

"It's fine, man. I told you, the rest of us will heal up the old fashioned way."

Cas shook his head against the pillow. "You told me to look after Sam, and it wasn't even an hour before we were attacked and he was hurt."

Dean's expression hardened. "Exactly. You  _both_  were attacked. They came prepared for war, Cas. I mean, hell, angel bullets and demon blood? Neither one of you stood a chance."

"But it was my responsibility. The  _one_  thing you asked me to do, after the mess I made with Lucifer…"

"Hey, hey, hey, stop it," Dean interrupted. Jeez, where the hell was this coming from? "This was not your fault. And I already told you, the thing with Lucifer, he really did seem like our only shot there."

He hesitated, not sure this was the best time to have this conversation…

"But, why  _did_  you say yes?"

Cas's eyes were wet as he looked back at Dean. "I wanted to be of service."

Dean dropped his gaze, unable to bear the pain in his best friend's eyes. "You don't ever need to 'be of service,' Cas," he said thickly, and then managed to meet the angel's gaze again. "You just need to be here. The three of us against the world is always enough, remember?"

Cas's throat bobbed as he gazed back silently for a long moment, but then he gave a small nod, followed by a violent shiver.

"Okay." Dean cleared his throat. "You just get some rest. I'm gonna check on Sam and then I'll be back."

He exited Cas's room and went next door where his brother was already settled in bed, but sitting propped up against the pillows with his laptop in his lap and clacking away at the keyboard.

"You'd better be pulling up something on Netflix," Dean warned.

Sam flicked a slightly abashed look up at him. "I'm searching the archives on demon blood and angels. How is Cas?"

Dean's stomach tightened. "He's been better. But he'll pull through; he always does."

Sam nodded, but Dean could tell it was forced.

"Why don't you give me the laptop? You need to rest."

Sam shook his head. "I slept in the car. And- and I don't think I'm ready to close my eyes again just yet."

The knot in Dean's gut constricted around his insides further. Right.

"Okay. When's the last time you ate? I bet those British bastards didn't feed you anything."

Sam grimaced. "Yeah, not so much. I'm not sure my stomach can handle much right now, though."

"I'll make soup," Dean replied, and turned to leave.

"Dean."

He paused and craned a look over his shoulder as Sam lifted a watery gaze to his.

"I'm glad you're back."

Dean's expression softened. "Me too. You get into too much trouble without me around."

Sam snorted and rolled his eyes. Dean's mouth quirked.

He found Mom waiting in the hall when he stepped outside. "Hey," he said, giving a start. "I'm sorry. You need an ice pack and a room—"

"Dean," she interrupted. "I'm good. You've taken care of everyone else; why don't you let me take care of you? That is my job, after all."

He hesitated, taken aback. "No, thanks. But I'm fine, too." He was exhausted, and sore, but that was just par for the course in his line of work. And he should check on Cas again, maybe make the angel some soup as well, just to feel like he was doing  _something_  useful on that front.

Mom came up and put a hand on his shoulder, and somehow that was enough to break the damn and let the tears start building. Dean's throat nearly closed off as he fought them back.

"This is non negotiable," she said firmly, but then slid her gaze sideways in hesitation. "Though, you will have to show me where the ice packs are. And the ingredients so I can make soup. …And the pots and pans."

Dean choked on a laugh. "Yeah, alright."

She smiled, and Dean had never felt so grateful that for once, he didn't have to bear the weight of everything on his own.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the missed update yesterday. I've been horribly sick all weekend. Today's the first time I've been able to sit up for any stretch of time. Thank you to everyone who commented on the last chapter. Sorry I also missed responding to them individually. I might go back and do that once I'm feeling a bit better for a longer period.

Sam didn't find any references on demon blood being used on angels, and it wasn't long before staring at the computer screen made his vision blur and his head start drooping forward. He must have nodded off at one point, because the next time he woke up, his laptop was gone and the blankets were pulled higher up on his chest.

His foot was killing him, yet exhaustion was stronger, and he slipped under once more. He managed to sleep off and on for almost twelve hours before the nightmares started to rear their ugly heads, and at that point he decided he wasn't going to continue staying in bed like this. So he extricated himself from the sheets and hobbled his way next door to where Cas was.

There was an empty chair by the bed and a bowl of water with a soaked washcloth sitting in it, evidence of Dean's divided vigil between the two of them. Sam limped across the room and plopped heavily in the chair. To his disappointment and concern, Cas didn't look much different than yesterday—pale and shivering in the throes of fever. But he was still holding on, just like he always did.

Sam reached for the wet cloth and wrung it out, then leaned forward to place it over Cas's sweat-beaded brow. Cas moaned and leaned into the touch.

"We're right here, buddy," Sam said softly. "Just keep fighting."

Dean came in a short while later. "Should you be out of bed?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "My foot's messed up, not the rest of me."

"Yeah, well, you had a really rough time of it recently."

Sam's gaze roved over his brother's darkening bruises, the echo of iron striking flesh sounding in his ears. "We all did."

Dean's eyes slid to Cas. "Yeah."

Sam fell silent for a moment before asking, "Is the fever from the demon blood or the gunshot wound?"

"Hell if I know," Dean replied. He ran a hand down his jaw. "I don't know what else to do for him."

Sam didn't either, and it settled heavily on his shoulders. He removed the cloth, now warm, and soaked it in the cooler water before folding it over and replacing it on Cas's forehead.

"Should probably change your bandage," Dean spoke up.

Sam's stomach turned at the thought, but he knew it was necessary. "Yeah."

But he wasn't planning on leaving Cas's side, so he simply lifted his leg up to prop it on the foot of the bed. Dean went to retrieve the bandages and salve he'd left in Sam's room earlier.

Sam clenched his jaw so hard through the process that his teeth started to hurt. He inhaled sharply and shallowly through his nose, trying to ride out the pain that made his gorge want to rise.

"Easy," Dean said over and over in a steady mantra. At least he didn't make a harsh sound or hesitate in his ministrations, suggesting that the burn wasn't festering or becoming infected.

When he finally finished wrapping it again, Sam slumped in the chair and didn't want to move.

"Need help getting back to your room?" Dean asked.

He shook his head, and forced himself to sit up a little straighter. "I'm gonna sit with Cas for a bit."

Dean nodded. "Need anything?"

"Water?" He knew he shouldn't let himself get dehydrated.

"Coming right up."

Sam slid his attention back to Cas, praying his friend would pull through.

He sat by Cas's bedside for an hour, going through the motions of rewetting the cloth and laying it across Cas's brow to help leech out some of the heat from the fever. Except no matter how many times he did it, it didn't seem to help. Dean even brought in ice wrapped in a towel and attempted to place it under Cas's neck, but the angel started squirming in discomfort and trying to get away, so they abandoned that plan and stuck to milder, tepid water.

Sam yawned so widely his jaw cracked, and he gave himself a small shake.

"Sam, go back to bed," Dean chided.

He shook his head. "I'm fine."

"Dude, you're about to fall over."

"I'll sleep here, then."

Dean heaved out an exasperated sigh. "Sammy…"

"I don't- I need to see someone when I wake up," he said, voice hitching and face flushing hot with the admission. "You need to look after Cas anyway, and I need to see that you're both still…"

Dean didn't say anything for a long moment, and Sam avoided looking at him.

"Yeah, alright," Dean finally murmured. "I'll get your pillow and another blanket."

Sam swallowed around the lump in his throat. "Thanks."

Dean paused before leaving, and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. Neither is Cas. He's too stubborn for that."

Sam gave a jerky nod. He knew that. But he also needed the reminder if he happened to fall asleep and the visions from those hallucinations in the cellar tried to convince him otherwise…

And sure enough, when he started awake sometime later, the first thing he saw was Dean sitting on the edge of the other side of the bed, mopping Cas's brow. Sam felt a flicker of embarrassment that his brother had probably noticed he was having a nightmare, but Dean mercifully didn't comment on it. It wasn't like nightmares wasn't a familiar past time for them both.

Movement in his peripheral vision had Sam turning his head to find Mom standing in the doorway with a breakfast tray in her hands.

"Hey," she said. "I brought you both some soup."

Sam straightened a little in the chair. "Thanks."

She brought the tray in and set it on the desk, then handed him a bowl of steaming tomato rice soup. He stared at it for a moment, remembering how Dean had always made this for him when he was sick. Because Mom had made it. And now she was here, making it again.

Sam lifted his gaze to take her in as she brought a bowl over to Dean, telling him he needed to eat, too. She was just as beat up as the lot of them, but that only made her look more real, more tangible. It still blew his mind.

"Sam," she said. "You keep looking at me like I'm going to explode."

He chuffed out an abashed chuckle. "I'm sorry."

She just smiled at him. "You guys are probably going to get tired of soup soon. I would cook something else, but I, uh…don't. I can go get some take-out to keep in the fridge."

Dean furrowed his brow in confusion. "Well, wait. Your meat loaf was amazing."

"Came from the Piggly Wiggly," she replied. "Sorry to burst your bubble."

Dean briefly looked like a kid who'd just found out Santa Claus wasn't real, but he shrugged it off. "Yeah, alright. I can make a supply run."

"Or I can," Mom said pointedly. "I just need some, um, cash."

Dean opened his mouth to lay out more protests, but Mom bowled over him.

"And I was driving the Impala long before you were," she said, crossing her arms and fixing Dean with a maternal look.

Sam had to duck his gaze to keep from laughing.

Dean's mouth moved soundlessly for a moment. "Right. Uh, okay." He stood up to fish the keys and some cash from his pockets. "Uh, you just take the road straight into town—"

"Dean, I paid attention when we were driving in and out the first time." She took the keys and money, then hesitated, glancing at Cas. "I don't suppose Tylenol would be of much help, would it?"

"Not really," Sam answered regretfully, but he gave her a wan smile of gratitude for trying.

Mom nodded, and then left.

Sam took a spoonful of hot soup, and then furrowed his brow. "Does it taste different?"

Dean took a mouthful, and closed his eyes in a brief moment of bliss. "Mom's always tastes the best."

Sam snorted at the cliche he'd heard often enough. He'd just never had a chance to see for himself before now.

They ate in silence for several minutes before Dean spoke again.

"It's, uh, a little weird. Having her here. Not that I'm not thrilled," he hastily added. "I just…I don't really know what to say to her."

"It's weird for me, too," Sam said. "But that's pretty much standard for our lives."

Dean huffed out a sound of agreement.

"And who would have ever thought we'd get something as good as this?" Sam went on.

Dean shook his head. "Never."

Sam paused for a moment. "It's probably weird for her, too."

Dean nodded silently.

Cas let out a low moan then, drawing their attention back to him. Dean set his bowl of soup aside and laid the back of his hand on Cas's forehead. His brows pinched in concentration, and then he reached for the thermometer on the nightstand to stick in Cas's mouth.

Sam waited, slowly sipping at his soup.

When Dean finally withdrew the thermometer and looked at it, his shoulders slumped a fraction in obvious release. "Fever's coming down."

Sam let out a breath of relief. Maybe, finally, they were all out of the woods.

* * *

That night, Sam pulled himself from Cas's bedside and shuffled his way toward Mom's room. Aside from bringing them soup, she'd more or less been making herself scarce, at least when Sam was awake, though he got the impression from Dean that it was the same with him.

He paused outside her door to knock.

"Yes?" came the surprised response.

Sam opened the door, keeping his hand on the knob for support. Mom was sitting at the desk in a robe, her long blonde hair cascading down her back. "Hey," he said nervously.

"Hi."

"Sorry, I hope I didn't wake you up," he gushed, unable to keep a goofy smile off his face because he was talking to his  _mom_.

She gave him a warm smile. "Should you be walking around on that foot?"

Sam shrugged. "I'm mostly staying off of it. Uh, I just wanted to say…if you ever want to talk, I know what it's like to come back and not feel like you…really fit."

Mom's expression flickered with something hesitant for a split second. "I just have so much about you boys to catch up on."

He nodded in understanding.

"Mother stuff," she went on, getting to her feet. "You know, first tooth, first crush."

Oh. Sam looked away, realizing she meant all the… _mundane_  stuff. Normal stuff. Which, they hadn't exactly lived very much. "Yeah."

She leaned back against the desk, expression sad. "I just have a lot of blanks to fill in."

Sam nodded jerkily again, remembering the book he'd retrieved on his way over. "Right, uh…" He let go of the door so he could grab the leather-bound book from under his other arm and hand it to her. He knew it wasn't filled with happy memories, but it was the truth.

"Dad's journal," he said.

Her eyes widened as she took it.

"His writing, his words. Helped me fill in some blanks, answer some questions I didn't know I had." He took a breath. "And, you know, it- it- it keeps him with us. Sort of." He grimaced at his poor attempt to comfort his mom. Dad had been gone a long time to them, but Sam knew her loss was current.

Mom looked back up at him, a genuine smile on her face. "Thank you," she said sincerely.

Sam nodded, relieved. He started to turn to leave. "Good night."

Mom stood up, gazing at him in bemusement. "Dean said you got out of hunting," she said carefully, tone laced with confusion.

Sam paused, equally perplexed by the turn of topic. "Yeah."

"And yet here you are."

He frowned, remembering that Mom never wanted this life for them. But… He lifted his shoulders. "Well, this is my family. My family hunts, you know? It's what we do."

And he didn't just mean Mom and Dad. He and Dean  _and_  Cas, they saved people. Saved the world.

Mom slowly nodded, but there was pain in her eyes as she looked away.

Sam hadn't meant to hurt her, and he didn't want to leave things off on a bad note. "Mom," he said, voice rising an octave as emotion swelled his throat and wet his eyes. "For me…just, um… Having you here…" He swallowed hard, trying his best to keep a hold of his voice. "Fills in the biggest blank," he finally finished.

Her eyes widened, and then she was stepping forward to carefully embrace him. Sam's breath exhaled sharply at the tangible feel of her arms around him, so solid, so real, and he closed his eyes to drink it in.

Yeah, his family hunts. And his family comes back from the dead.

And his family beats all the odds.

* * *

Cas's fever continued to come down, and two days later it finally broke. Sam was back in the chair by his bed when Cas started to shift with the beginnings of wakefulness, his brows knitting together as consciousness returned. Sam leaned forward and touched his arm.

"Hey."

Cas sluggishly dragged his eyelids open, and then turned his head. "Sam," he croaked.

Sam couldn't hold back a giddy smile. "How are you feeling?"

Cas groaned and closed his eyes. "Utterly wrecked." He let out a wheezing breath and opened them again. "But alive."

Sam's grin widened, because Cas had pulled through, and that was all that mattered. But then it faltered as he asked his next question. "How's your grace?"

Cas sighed. "Weakened. I will recover, but it will take some time. I'm sorry, Sam, I'm still not strong enough to heal you, and probably won't be for a while."

"That's not why I was asking," Sam said pointedly. The fact that Cas kept defaulting to that meant there was an issue they'd have to address sooner rather than later. But at the moment, there were some other, more pressing things.

"Um, how about your wings? How are they doing?"

Cas blinked at him blankly. "I don't understand the question. My wings aren't functional. They haven't been since the Fall. You know that."

Sam bit his lip. If he could have spared Cas knowing what Toni did to him, he would have, since it seemed Cas had been too drugged up to feel it. But it wasn't just the feathers Toni ripped out that was concerning Sam.

"Toni…she had a spell that let her…" He swallowed. "Touch your wings. And she…ripped out some feathers."

Cas stared at him in dismay.

"They don't hurt?" Sam pressed.

Cas's expression flickered as though he were turning his attention inward to find out, and then that familiar stoic mask was falling into place, though he avoided Sam's gaze. "Everything hurts," he admitted. "But…I can't feel my wings at the moment anyway."

Sam nodded slowly, processing that. "Dean and I made sure to grab all the feathers on our way out," he thought to add. "That bitch didn't get any of them."

Cas blinked. "Oh. Um, thank you."

Sam took another breath. "Cas…I saw her do it, and… Your wings looked broken," he let out bluntly.

Cas's jaw ticked, and he looked away again.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"All the angels' wings look like that," he said, voice hoarse. "There wasn't anything to be done about it."

Sam shook his head, frustration mounting. "Three years, man. You didn't think we'd want to know? You're our friend, our family."

"There were more pressing matters," Cas mumbled. "Dean had the Mark, and then there was the Darkness—"

"I wish you'd stop sacrificing yourself for us," Sam blurted.

Cas started, eyes wide. "I know Lucifer was a mistake. I'm sorry—"

"I'm not talking about that," Sam interrupted. "Or, I am, but not because it was a mistake. I'm talking about you not caring if you live or die. By saying yes to Lucifer. Or when your grace was burning out."

Sam closed his eyes against a swell of self-recriminating grief, because he'd failed Cas on that one, too. Had ignored when Cas was dying from his stolen grace because Dean was missing and Sam's sole focus had been on finding his brother. And of course Cas wouldn't bother to help himself in that situation.

Sam shook his head. "You always put us before yourself, even when you shouldn't."

"It's my job to look after you."

"We're your friends, not your occupation."

Cas blinked, and then ducked his eyes again. "You're right. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Sam, you and Dean are my family. All I want is for you to be safe."

"That's a three-way street, Cas. We want the same for you."

They fell silent, neither one of them quite able to look the other in the eye.

Sam cleared his throat. "This is gonna sound awful, but…I'm glad you were there with me, in that cellar. Not that you got shot and poisoned and almost died, but…" He sucked in a shaky breath. "We thought Dean was dead, and you were all I had left. I'm not sure I would have been able to hold on if I'd been alone."

Cas's gaze was solemn and filled with understanding. "It was the same for me, Sam. I- I would have given up if I didn't have a reason to keep fighting. If you weren't that reason."

A spiky lump settled in Sam's throat, and he had to take a moment to breathe as his eyes grew wet. They were home. It was over. They'd found something to cling to in that hellhole and had endured because of it.

Sam reached out to clasp the angel's hand. "Thanks. For holding on."

Cas squeezed back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for this story! The plan is to start posting my next one Friday, as long as I don't have any major setbacks.


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